Kulwieć Janina (Grundgand)

Files 946, 946b Grundgand-Kulwieć, Janina Merson, Mirosława Merson, Jerzy During the war, Janina (Janka) Grundgand-Kulwieć was living in Warsaw and working for the Town Gas Company when (she was a chemical engineer). In September 1942, a young Jewish woman, from Ostrowiec-Kielecki, named Edzia Fefer (later known as Drach) who had fled to Warsaw contacted her. Edzia, after her escaping from Ostrowiec-Kielecki, accidentally she has met on her way to Warsaw, a Jewish refugee who gave her an address of his wife’s friend who was a German physician married to a Polish resident; who was meanwhile arrested by the German authorities. Unfortunately, this kind of work (alongside a physician) was not for the young refugee, and after a week she was forced to leave. Edzia, who didn't know what to do, returned to the physician and told her that she is a Jewish; and bagged her to accept from her jewelries, because she is leaving immediately and attending to visit the Gestapo. The physician advised her to leave Warsaw, and move to Zakopane, and to marry a local mountain man (Góral). The physician proposed Edzia to met in the nearby sweetshop; afterwards she told Edzia that she might contact with her distant relative, named Janina Grundgand. When Edzia met Janina for the first time, she described it in a testimony to Yad Vashem: “…I rushed to find her and saw a beautiful girl with lovely eyes who told me, on the spot, that she could help me. I said she might not know what she was going to take on her since I was supposed to die, and why did she want to risk her own life? She burst out laughing and told me, that it was none of my business.” Edzia stayed with Janina for a night and then she was sent to Janina’s sister, Mrs. Mirosława Merson, where she worked for three weeks; in a meantime, Janina procured an “Arjan” papers for her, on the name of Stefania (Stefcia) Janiszewska. At Edzia’s request, Janina looked after a group of friends and relatives whosurvived from the Ostrowiec-Kielecki ghetto liquidation and had turned up in Warsaw. The group included: Edzia’s brother Motek, her friends Renia Niskier-Szewes, Hinda Malach-Malachi, Basia Halbersztat-Folkman and her brother- Dawid; Helena and Cesia (Wiesia) Kleiman; Janina and Stefan Oddechowski and their two small children. Janina helped them to find a shelter, work and to obtain an “Aryan” papers (Mrs. Kulwieć was a member of the Polish underground resistance army; AK- Armia Krajowa (Home Army)). Basia Halbersztat (later known as Folkman) was also employed by Mrs. Mirosława Merson; she stayed at her house for a several weeks, while in the same time, (Edzia) Fefer’s brother (Motke) stayed also at Mersons’ house. Hinda Malach-Malachi wrote about the night that she spent at Janina’s apartment, in 1943: “I stayed at her place overnight with no document and without registering, and it was on that night that when the Gestapo entered this building, which was very big. I was very nervous, but Mrs. Grundgand, who was in her final month of pregnancy, calmed me down and said, that she would say, that I have arrived today from Częstochowa in order to help her with the household and I didn’t managed to register. Admittedly, it ended well, because they didn’t came to us, but I really liked her attitude.” Edzia, who took courage and started to look for jobs by herself, she has never lost a contact with Janina; in her testimony to Yad Vashem she wrote: “I visited her frequently. For me it was my home, since in every place in which I have worked, I was someone else and no one could know from where I am. I came to Janka and there I was myself. I could talk with her on everything, to tell her all about my troubles, misfortunes. She was a real soul-mate for me.” The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising severed the contact between them. When the war ended, a few years later, Edzia together with Renia Szewes (once Niskier) have renewed their contact with Mrs. Janina Grundgand-Kulwieć. Edzia Fefer-Drach, Renia Niskier-Szewes, Hinda Malach-Malachi, Basia Halbersztat-Folkman and her brother- Dawid; immigrated to Israel. On the 23rd of April 1975, Yad Vashem recognized Janina Grundgand-Kulwieć, her sister, Mirosława Merson, and her husband, Jerzy Merson, as a Righteous Among the Nations.