Ryszewski Henryk & Ryszewska Irena ; Daughter: Brusikiewicz Zofia (Ryszewska)

Ryszewski, Henryk Ryszewska, Irena Ryszewska-Brusikiewicz, Zofia From 1942 until the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, the Ryszewskis of Warsaw - Henryk, his wife Irena, and their two daughters, Zofia and Wanda - sheltered thirteen Jews who had fled from the local ghetto in their spacious apartment until the dwelling went up in flames in late summer 1944. The Jews who found asylum with the Ryszewskis were Aleksander Artman, Lipa Szymkiewicz, the sisters Ania and Róża Lewin, Józef Kupferstein with his wife Maria, Leon Funt with his wife Lea and their daughter, Markus Kasman and his brother-in-law, and Ludwik Opal and his wife. Most of them had left the ghetto with no means of support, but the Ryszewskis aided and cared for them sympathetically at no recompense. Irena and her daughter Zofia showed them special devotion, sparing no effort to meet all their needs. As a young man, Henryk Ryszewski had attended a Catholic theological seminary and before the war had been a journalist for two pronouncedly antisemitic newspapers. When the murder of Jews began, his staunch Catholicism prompted him to change his attitude; he began to atone for past sins by linking his own fate and that of his family to that of his Jewish wards. On March 7, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Henryk Ryszewski, his wife Irena, and their daughter Zofia Ryszewska-Brusikiewicz as Righteous Among the Nations. File 2243