Paczkowska Maria

Paczkowska, Maria During the Second World War, Lola Gruder and her four children – Sally (later, Reisman), Selma (later, Horowitz), Herbert, and Pearl (later, Field) – were living in the vicinity of their native village of Hanaczów (Przemyślany County, Tarnopol District), hiding in order to survive. Hanaczów was a Polish village in the heart of a Ukrainian inhabited area, desperately defending itself from its ultra-nationalist Ukrainian enemies. The local command of the Polish underground Home Army (AK) in defense of the village took the Jewish families hiding in the village and its environs under its protection. Following Ukrainian attacks, AK soldiers evacuated the civilian population in April 1944, including the Jews, and relocated them to other Polish villages nearby. After an exhausting trek, Lola and her children came to the village of Bilka. They were destitute and did not know anyone there. As they entered the village, a young woman standing at the door of her home felt sorry for them and invited them in. She said, "I know that you are Jews and were sent here by the AK from Hanaczów, but don't be afraid." The woman’s name was Maria Paczkowska. She was 28-years-old, and had a nine-year-old daughter with her. Her husband was then a prisoner of the Germans. Maria was a poor woman who barely subsisted with her daughter on what they were able to grow on their small farm, and yet they still took in five strangers to their home. Maria kept them with her for the next four months. Apart from the financial burden of supporting five more people, she was also warned by her relatives of the risk she had taken on herself and her daughter in hiding a Jewish family. She replied that “we are all the children of one God and equal before Him.” Nonetheless, the fear that they would be handed over to the Germans was great, so the Gruders tried to find shelter in the forest near their home village. They discovered though that in the forest the danger of denunciation was even greater, and decided to go back to Maria’s home. The Gruders remained there until the liberation in July 1944 and survived. On November 14, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Maria Paczkowska as Righteous Among the Nations.