Krakiewicz Janina (Czyzewska)

Krakiewicz, Janina In late 1940, prior to the incarceration of the local Jews in the ghetto, 18-year-old Irena Perkal fled from Stoczek Lukowski, in the Lublin district, and made her way to the home of Janina Krakiewicz, asking for help. Krakiewicz, who lived in Wlochy, a Warsaw suburb, agreed to hide Perkal in her attic. Since she did not look Jewish, Perkal used to leave her hiding place to visit relatives who were also hiding on the Aryan side of Warsaw. One day, Perkal returned home from one of these visits accompanied by two Jewish boys, the Abramowicz brothers, whom she introduced to Krakiewicz as her cousins. Krakiewicz agreed to shelter them too, until, fearing discovery by the neighbors, she arranged for them to move in with her brother, who lived in the village of Wisniew, near the town of Kaluszyn. Perkal herself stayed under Krakiewicz’s care until the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, Perkal immigrated to the United States where she kept up a correspondence with her savior. In risking her life for the Jewish refugees , Krakiewicz was guided by humanitarian motives which overrode considerations of personal safety or economic hardship. On May 31, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Janina Krakiewicz as Righteous Among the Nations.