Wolska Ewa ; Daughter: Wawrzkiewicz Joanna (Wolska)

Wolska Ewa Wawrzkiewicz Joanna Ewa Wolska lived in Lwów with her daughter Joanna. Joanna worked as a shirt maker in the Textillia textile plant. Jews from the ghetto were brought to this factory and thus she came to know and befriend the Hirschhorn family. “That family had no money, and because of it no chance of survival. They turned to me for help, which I could not refuse,” wrote Joanna in her testimony. She added that she approached her friend who had a house in Zamarstynów, a suburb of Lwów, to help her find shelter for the family. The friend agreed to help. She was a widow and was raising three daughters on her own. The two women decided to build a bunker below the ground with an entrance from the house. They found a person whom they trusted to build the bunker. The hideout was for seven people: Erna Hirschhorn, Regina Hirschhorn, Aron Hirschhorn (Regina’s ten-year-old son), Henryk Hirschhorn, Benjamin Hirschhorn, and Josef Kurz and L. Loewenauer (friends of the Hirschorns). “Mrs. Wolska brought us [to the hideout], and, I once again must remind you that there were seven of us, from different places. Each trip was a true odyssey, requiring much intelligence and a sense of responsibility in accounting for the dangers of being recognized and arrested, which was synonymous with our deaths, and Mrs. Wolska’s,” recalled Regina Hirschhorn. Joanna was also responsible for feeding the seven fugitives who hid in this shelter from May 1943 until August 1944. During this time, Joanna also hid Lidia Naidat (nee Witaschka, born 1930) in her Lwów apartment. On February 11, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Joanna Wawrzkiewicz and her mother, Ewa Wolska, as Righteous Among the Nations. File 5121