Prior to the War, several Jewish families lived in the village of Lubiczyn in the Lubelski province. Among them was cattle trader, Mosze Kominiarz, his wife and teenage daughter. In the summer of 1941, when the Germans began deporting Jews from the Lubelskie province into ghettos, Mosze turned to his neighbour and buddy from the Polish-Bolshevik war, Marian Mańkowski, with the request to ”save them from certain death”.
For a long time, Mańkowski considered what he should do. He had a wife and two children. He was afraid. However, agreed when urged to do so by his children ”who had played together with Moszek Kominiarz’s daughter”.
At first, the Kominiarz family hid in the unfinished part of the Mańkowski house. Since the Germans often searched the village for partisans and Jews, it shortly became necessary to find them a safer hiding place.
A new place, camouflaged with a haystack, was created in the barn. Its entry was through a dog kennel. ”My son would supposedly bring food for the dog, but it was really for the Jews”, said Mańkowski.
The Kominiarz family spent several months there. When German visits to the village became even more frequent, Marian and Mosze dug a bunker in the nearby forest. The Jews remained there until the end of the War.
The Kominiarz emigrated to the United States. Mosze suggested to Mańkowski that they should leave together, but he declined. They exchanged correspondence over many years.
For many years, Halina Partyka, Marian’s daughter, was an active member and treasurer of the Lublin branch of the Polish Society of the Righteous Among the Nations.
