“Płońsk did not have many Poles hiding Jews. There might have been twenty, might have been only two”. He does not know any of them.
Prior to the war, some 5 thousand out of the total 11 thousand inhabitants of Płońsk were Jews. Many of them were doctors or lawyers.
Stanisław’s father fought in the Great War as a Legionnaire; he disarmed the Germans in 1918. The family had a small farm. “We lived well with the Jews. We worked together, were friends, helped each other.”
“One group did not bother the other. If the cobbler was Jewish, the shoemaker was Polish.” Stanisław does not know, how many survived. His family managed to save three. He lists: “Eli Nojman, Dawid Kapeluśnik and Mosze Isaak. All friends, no one random. “I don’t think you’d take just anyone to your home” - he says.
The ghetto was liquidated in the end of 1942. The Jews were taken out at night, secretly. The others only realized they were gone some two days later, because of the silence.
He went to see. An empty apartment, another one, and another one. It made him sad; he was 11 at that time.
“Some of them we kept in the attic of the house, some were taken to family in the country”.
Isaak stayed the longest. “We turned him into Jan Trawiński. They didn’t like it in the attic. They just sat around with nothing to do”.
All three left Poland after the war. They are long dead. Stanisław says:
“Yesterday I met with Bela Łubińska, tomorrow I’m going to the Jewish cemetery with Mrs. Klara Szyc, whose daughter works at the Jewish school in Wola. Most of my friends and acquaintances are Jewish.”
