Rotman Stanisława (Kaczmarczyk)

Stanisława Kaczmarczyk-Rotman Stanisława Kaczmarczyk and Jakub Rotman were childhood friends from Płock. Before the war, Kaczmarczyk moved to Warsaw and after the occupation, met Rotman. Since Płock was annexed to the Reich and therefore subject to strict anti-Jewish laws, Kaczmarczyk invited Rotman to come and stay with her in Warsaw until he found an apartment. Rotman took up the offer, and when the Warsaw ghetto was established, Kaczmarczyk obtained forged documents for him in her brother’s name, enabling him to pose as her husband. On several occasion, Kaczmarczyk saved Rotman when the Polish “blue” police were after him. Kaczmarczyk also helped other Jews who fled to the Aryan side of the city. One day, an acquaintance brought Fela Szulc and her seven-year-old daughter to Kaczmarczyk’s home, asking her to shelter them temporarily. Despite the fact that they were complete strangers, Kaczmarczyk gave them a warm welcome. She retrieved her late sister’s birth certificate from the Church registry, enabling Szulc to obtain official Christian documents, and arranged for Szulc and her daughter to stay with one of her acquaintances. After the war, Stanisława Kaczmarczyk married Jakub Rotman. They settled in Warsaw and had a daughter. In 1987 Stanisława Rotman left Poland for Israel to join her daughter, who had immigrated to the country two years earlier. In a testimony she gave to Yad Vashem, she wrote: "Having shared so much hardship, Jakub and I decided that we would be parted only by death. We married in 1946 in Płock, and a year later our daughter was born". On July 17, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Stanisława Rotman-Kaczmarczyk as Righteous Among the Nations. In 1995, the couple’s daughter, Bożena, began working at Yad Vashem, in the Department of the Righteous, where she was put in charge of the Polish desk – researching and preparing files of Polish rescuers, like her mother. File 4291