Kowalski Władysław & Kowalska Halina (Lityńska)

Kowalski, Władysław Kowalska, Halina Władysław Kowalski was known in Warsaw as an author, a public figure and a journalist with Marxist views. A few days before the outbreak of war, Kowalski and his wife, fearing arrest by the Germans occupiers, changed their name and moved to a place where they were not known. In their new place, they began providing shelter to Jewish girls who escaped from the ghetto, passing them off as their relatives. Halina Kowalska, who worked for a German firm that had branches in the ghetto, had an entry permit to the ghetto, which she exploited in order to smuggle the girls out of the ghetto to her home. In risking their lives to save Jews, the Kowalskis were guided by a sense of duty to help those persecuted by a common enemy, and never expected anything in return. Two of the Jewish girls whom Kowalska smuggled out of the ghetto stayed with the Kowalskis until a permanent refuge was found for them. One day, in 1943, an acquaintance asked the Kowalskis if they would employ a girl called Rivka Leitman as a nanny for their daughter. Although the Kowalskis realized that Rivka, who introduced herself as a peasant girl, was Jewish, they agreed to employ her, paid her a monthly salary, and later obtained “Aryan” documents for her. Lejtman stayed with the Kowalskis even after the war, only leaving their home in 1947 after a relative discovered her whereabouts. Leitman subsequently immigrated to Israel, from where she kept in touch with her rescuers for many years, and invited their daughter, Zofia, to visit her in Israel. On July 27, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Halina and Władysław Kowalski as Righteous Among the Nations.