Witkowska Felicja (Brodowska); Son: Witkowski Ryszard ; Daughter: Tatur Aniela (Witkowska)

File 5659 WITKOWSKA, FELICJA WITKOWSKI, RYSZARD TATUR-WITKOWSKA, ANIELA Felicja Witkowska was a widow and lived in Milanowek, near Warsaw, with her two grown children, Aniela and Ryszard. The Witkowskis ran a photography shop in an arbor near the railway station. Ryszard was an AK activist and as such was engaged in the distribution of the underground press. In 1943, the Germans conducted a search of the Witkowskis’ home and arrested Felicja and Aniela. Ryszard managed to arrange their release, but the stay in Pawiak prison left a sustained mark on the mother’s and daughter’s psyche. “There they met, with no mediation, the cruelty of the Hitleric terror machine,” wrote Ryszard in his testimony. In early August 1944, a stranger came into Felicja’s shop. He was in his twenties and was wearing rags. While alone in the shop with Felicja, he told her that he was a escapee from Pawiak prison and that he was looking for help. Felicja, without hesitating, and driven by pure humanitarianism, promised to help him. She did not change her mind when the stranger, named Roman, informed her that he was a Jew. After consulting with her children, Felicja decided to hide Roman in the shop. They arranged a place for him to sleep and fed him as well. They also clothed him. Ryszard obtained false documents for him under the name of Jozef Grotte. Equipped with the documents, Roman began to leave his hideout, but he still spent his nights there. In order to cover all possibilities of detection, he and Ryszard dug a shelter under the shop floor. In the autumn of 1944, when the first frosts came, Roman left the unheated arbor and moved to the Witkowskis’ home. At that time, refugees from Warsaw were stopping (for varying periods of time) at the Witkowsis’, among them two Jews, Jozef and Bronislaw Miodowski. The Witkowski family helped them as well. Roman and the Miodowski brothers lived with the Witkowskis until the liberation on January 17, 1945. Following theliberation, the refugees moved away, but they remained in contact with the Witkowskis. The Miodowski brothers moved to Lodz and a few years later they left Poland - Bronislaw went to France and Jozef went to the United States. Roman left Poland and settled in Germany, where he decided to keep his wartime pseudonym, Jozef Grotte. On February 28, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Felicja Witkowska and her children, Ryszard Witkowski and Aniela Tatur-Witkowska, as Righteous Among the Nations.