Borkowska Anna

Borkowska Anna Ostreyko Jordana Roszak Cecylia Maria Neugebauer Imelda Bednarska Stefania Adamek Malgorzata Frackiewicz Helena-Diana In 1941, during the German occupation, Anna Borkowska (Sister Bertranda), mother superior of a Dominican convent in Kolonia Wilenska, about 15 kilometers from Vilna, together with six other nuns, helped save a group of Hashomer Hatza‘ir members looking for a hiding place in the area. Through the mediation of Jadwiga Dudzic, a representative of the Polish Scouts, Borkowska offered them temporary shelter in the convent. Among the fifteen Jews taken into the convent by the nuns were many who later became members of the underground in the Bialystok, Warsaw and Vilna ghettos, such as Arie Wilner, Aba Kowner, Israel Nagel, Chuma Godot, Chajka Grosman, and Edek Boraks. Borkowska (who was affectionately known as “Mother”) did all she could to ensure the safety of the Jews in her care. In the winter of 1942, a group of young activists left the convent and returned to the ghetto in order to organize an underground resistance cell. During their stay, the young activists had, with the knowledge and agreement of Borkowska and six other nuns, turned the place into a hive of activity for the Jewish underground. Aba Kowner was subsequently to relate that the first manifesto calling for a ghetto revolt was drawn up in the convent. After leaving the convent, the members of the underground maintained close ties with Borkowska, their “mother,” who visited them in the ghetto, helped them obtain weapons, and brought them their first hand grenades. After rumors that Jews were hiding in the convent reached the ears of the Gestapo, Borkowska was interrogated, and the convent shut down. The ties between the surviving members of the underground and Borkowska continued after the war, until her death. They even invited her to visit them in Israel, but due to ailing health, she was unable to take up their offer. On March 29, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Anna Borkowska and the nuns Imelda Neugebauer, Stefania Bednarska, Malgorzata Adamek, Jordana Ostreyko, Helena-Diana Frackiewicz and Cecylia Maria Roszak as Righteous Among the Nations. File No. 2682 Borkowska's helping hand was never forgotten by the Zionist pioneers who had immigrated to Israel after the war, but only in 1984 was contact with her reestablished. By that time she was 84 years old and living in a small apartment in Warsaw. The same year Yad Vashem awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations to Anna Borkowska and six nuns of her convent, and Abba Kovner planted a tree in her honor in the Avenue of the Righteous on the Mount of Remembrance. Abba Kovner traveled to Warsaw to present Anna Borkowska with the medal. "Why do I deserve this honor?" asked Borkowska, to which Kovner answered: "You are Anna of the angels". He went on to explain: "During the days when angels hid their faces from us, this woman was for us Anna of the Angels. Not of angles that we invent in our hearts, but of angels that create our lives forever."