Zawadzka Irena ; Mother: Sabina (Świniarska)

ZAWADZKA IRENA ZAWADZKA SABINA OLSZAKOWSKA-GLAZER ZOFIA RZEWUSKA LUCYNA Irena Zawadzka, Lucyna Rzewuska, and Zofia Olszakowska-Glazer, school friends, lived in Siedlce. Irena was living with her mother Sabina. During the war, another schoolmate, Cypora Zonszajn (née Jabłoń), approached Irena, along with her one-year-old daughter Rachela and a younger friend named Danuta Mączyk (seventeen at the time), who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto. They were in search of a shelter. The Zawadzkas happily accepted the three Jews into their home. Irena’s mother joyously welcomed them, saying, as Mączyk recalls: “My dear Cypora, I waited for nights and days, I felt that you were going to come.” After a few weeks in the Zawadzkas’ apartment, Cypora returned to the Siedlce ghetto (where her husband was staying) and left her daughter and young friend behind in the Zawadzkas’ care. Irena, with the help of one her schoolmates, Lucyna Rzewuska, placed the child in the Siedlce orphanage, which was run by nuns. When they came to visit the child a few months later and found her ill, they took her home where Irena along with her mother treated her until she was well again. When keeping the child became too dangerous (the local Gestapo branch was located nearby), the Zawadzkas put Rachela under the care of Zofia Olszakowska, who lived in Zakrzówek, near Kraśnik, in the Lublin area. The girl stayed there using “Aryan” documents until the liberation in the summer of 1944. The girl then returned to the Zawadzkas in Siedlce. After the war, the Zawadzkas managed to find the child’s uncle and at his request, the girl moved to France and finally found her way to Israel. During the war, Dantua Mączyk also found refuge with the help of Lucyna, and Zofia. At one point, Lucyna even managed to obtain a kennkarte for her under the name of Danuta Malinowska and for some time she was able work for a friend of Lucyna’s as a nanny. One day, Danuta was captured during a raid and sent, as aPole, to perform forced labor in Germany. She turned to Lucyna and asked for help. Lucyna reached the conclusion that Dorota’s leaving for Germany - where nobody would suspect that she was a Jew - would be her best chance of survival, even more so considering that the Germans in Siedlce began suspecting that Lucyna and her friends were helping Jews. Lucyna explained to Danuta that in the worst-case scenario, she would meet the same fate as other Poles. Danuta then left for Germany, where she survived the war. Later she immigrated to France and then to Israel. On May 25, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Irena Zawadzka, her mother, Sabina Zawadzka, and Lucyna Rzewuska and Zofia Olszakowska-Glazer, as Righteous Among the Nations.