Ejsmond Irena (Werpachowska)

Ejsmond Irena Before the war, Irena Ejsmond, an inhabitant of Warsaw, and Józef Tondowski, had been work colleagues. During the occupation, Tondowski was imprisoned in the ghetto with his wife, Edwarda. One day in 1942, Tondowski met Ejsmond on the Aryan side of the city and told her that although he and his wife had escaped from the ghetto, he had to return to rescue some valuable paintings. At Tondowski’s request, Ejsmond agreed to store the paintings in her house. Some time later, Edwarda turned up at Ejsmond’s home with the two paintings, and asked Ejsmond if she would be prepared to shelter her, since her current hiding-place was no longer safe. Ejsmond immediately agreed. A year later, Edwarda was joined by her husband. Ejsmond, guided by Christian love, looked after the Tondowskis for several months and saw to all their needs, without expecting anything in return. Thanks to the forged papers in their possession, the Tondowskis were able to leave Ejsmond’s home, and moved to Zakopane, in the Carpathian Mountains, in the Kraków district, where they remained until the liberation. When the civilian population was driven out of Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the Tondowskis repaid Ejsmond by sheltering her in their apartment in Zakopane until the end of the war. On May 16, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Irena Ejsmond as Righteous Among the Nations. File 4228