Piotrowska Jadwiga

Piotrowska, Jadwiga Jadwiga Piotrowska was a member of a devout Catholic family. During the occupation, Piotrowska lived with her parents in Warsaw and worked in the social department of City Hall. Piotrowska, who faithfully assisted Jan Dobraczyński*, who was responsible for street children in the same department, happened to find herself in the Warsaw ghetto in her professional capacity, where she saw the hardship of the Jewish children firsthand. In the context of her work, Piotrowska made contact in the ghetto with people who cared for children, including Janusz Korczak, whom she considered, as she put it, “A saint, although he was not a Christian.” In time, Piotrowska joined the Council for Aid to Jews (Żegota), and helped smuggle children out of the city and save them on the Aryan side of the city. Piotrowska was one Żegota’s most active members and personally cared for many Jews who came over to the Aryan side without any address or money. She provided them with places to hide and financial support. Her home served as a transit station for Jews, both adults and children, and they found a respite there from the terrible anxiety and fear they suffered. She helped prepare them for their life on the Aryan side of the city. She personally took a number of Jewish children to hide with Polish families and convents. Among those she saved were Pola Monat, and her two children, their niece, Halina Złotnik, Josek Buchsbaum, a youth that stayed in her home from 1943-1946, (whom she considered adopting), daughter of the Rapaczyński family, girls Maria and Joanna Majerczyk, and others. Piotrowska considered the help she extended to Jews her moral duty, and the saving of their lives both a patriotic duty and a religious calling. She would later say that she acted as any moral human being should have acted, and those whom she saved always remembered her with admiration and kept in touch with her for many years. On October 22, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized JadwigaPiotrowska as Righteous Among the Nations. File 3742