Hradowicz Maria

Hradowicz, Maria When the war broke out in September 1939, Markus Manner (b. 1900), a grain merchant, was living in Sambor, Poland, with his wife and three children. He was conscripted into the Polish army, and during battles in the proximity of the city, an area that later fell under Soviet occupation, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. Initially, the prisoners were held in the city of Drohobycz and tortured. The Nazis then took them to the train station in Sambor for transport to Germany. To Markus’s surprise, at the station he saw his former maid, Maria Hradowicz, holding his baby daughter in her arms. Maria approached the guards and said she was Markus’s wife. Using “their” child as a convincing argument, she begged them to release “her husband.” While the Polish guards laughed at her for demeaning herself for a Jewish man, one of the German guards took pity on the woman and sent Markus home with her. Markus and Maria went back to her home, where she took it upon herself to save the Manner family and protect them throughout the war. In 1941 the Germans again took over Sambor, and the fate of the Jews there was grim. In 1942, during one of the Aktionen (mass executions), Markus was captured and sent to the Przesliczka labor camp. Again, Maria followed him. She stayed with acquaintances in a nearby village and smuggled him food until she managed to get him out of the camp. The final liquidation of the Sambor Ghetto came in June 1943. Until then, the Manners hid in Maria’s attic and survived purely owing to her dedicated protection. After the liquidation, she rented them an apartment in town, where she moved all but the 4-year-old girl, whom she kept with her in her own apartment. She continued to provide them with food and other necessities. Unfortunately, Maria was blackmailed and tortured for keeping the little Jewish girl. Under questioning, she claimed the girl was hers, born to a Jewish father who had died in the camps. The Gestapo bought the story and let Maria and the child go. Maria went right back to protecting the Manners, until the area was liberated. Not only did she use her own means to feed and keep them, but when the money ran out, she went begging in order to provide for them. On June 6, 2016, Yad Vashem recognized Maria Hradowicz as Righteous Among the Nations.