Falska Maria (Rogowska)

Falska, Maria (Maryna) From the early 1900s, Maria Falska, known affectionately as Maryna, worked as a pedagogue and educator in educational and cultural institutions in the working-class neighborhoods of Warsaw. In 1919, Falska began to work in “Nasz Dom,” (“Our Home”) an educational institution in the Bielany suburb, which occasionally worked with Janusz Korczak. During the German occupation, Falska took a number of Jewish children – including Chana Fiszgrund, the daughter of Salo Fiszgrund, a Bund leader in Poland – into “Nasz Dom.” In order to shield the Jewish children, Falska did not send them to school, but taught them herself, so that they would not fall behind in their studies. During German raids, Falska hid the children in a variety of hiding places. Despite her precautions, the children at the institution began suspecting that some of the children were Jewish. Falska dispelled their suspicions by telling them that the children they suspected of being Jewish were actually French children who looked like Jews. It was during this period, too, that Falska renewed her ties with Korczak and offered to help him after he escaped from the ghetto. Although Korczak turned down her offer, he sent her his private archive for safekeeping. In the summer of 1944, after the Warsaw Uprising, the Germans ordered the evacuation of “Nasz Dom.” Falska, dismayed, collapsed and died of a stroke. All the children in the institution were transferred to a village near Warsaw, where they remained until the area was liberated in January 1945. In due course, the “Nasz Dom” institution was renamed after Maryna Falska. On April 14, 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Maria (Maryna) Falska as Righteous Among the Nations. File 3175