Dudziec Jadwiga

Dudziec Jadwiga Jadwiga Dudziec, a teacher who was born in a little village in the Vilna district, was active in the Polish scouts movement. In 1934, Dudziec moved to Vilna, where she established contact with the Zionist Jewish Scouts movement. During the German occupation, Dudziec made a point of employing Jews in the clog factory she ran. In due course, she let her apartment, which was situated above the workshop, be used as a meeting place for members of the Jewish Resistance. Thanks to her contacts in the Polish underground, Dudziec was able to find hiding places and obtain “Aryan” papers and work certificates for many Jews. Among her other activities, Dudziec smuggled weapons into the ghetto for members of the “United Partisans Organization” (FPO), and planned resistance strategies with them. Even after the Jewish fighters of the Vilna ghetto left the ghetto, she maintained contact with them, and let her house be used as a meeting place for Jewish partisans. Shortly before the liberation in July 1944, Dudziec was injured by shrapnel from a bomb, and her leg had to be amputated. Sadly, Dudziec never recovered from the operation, but died in hospital. In their memoirs, the Jewish fighters of the Vilna forests, including Abraham Sutzkever and Rozhka Korczak, testified that Jadwiga Dudziec was a devout Catholic, whose heroic acts were inspired by her unshakable religious faith. On June 17, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Jadwiga Dudziec as Righteous Among the Nations. File 8494