Domański Marian & Domańska Katarzyna ; Daughter: Pauzewicz Leokadia (Domańska)

Domanski, Marian Domanska, Katarzyna Pauszewicz, Leokadia Frania Piasecka was 2 years old when World War II broke out. Her family was then living in Gdynia, where they stayed for the next two years. When Frania reached the age of 4, she was passed into the hands of Polish acquaintances. She was not a quiet child, and she cried a lot because the conditions she was kept in, in various cellars and underground pits, were atrocious. This endangered the families she stayed with, and they, unsurprisingly, passed her on to others. In this way Frania arrived, just before the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, at the home of Marian and Katarzyna Domanski. Frania was a ginger-haired, Jewish-looking girl, so the Domanskis dyed her hair and let her play outside with other children as long as she crossed herself at appropriate moments and came with them to church. Sometimes, when patience failed them, Marian or Katarzyna would slap the child, and then their 18-year-old daughter, Leokadia, would come to her aid. After the Warsaw uprising, all of the citizens moved away. The Domanski household relocated—first to Pruszków and then to a village nearby. After the war ended, they told the girl that she was Jewish, news she found very hard to accept. One day in 1945, Frania’s uncle David appeared with the news that both her parents were dead and she would never see them again. He expressed a wish to take the girl with him. They waited awhile for the Domanskis to return from church, but eventually David took Frania and they left. The Domanskis searched high and low for their missing girl, to whom they had grown quite attached. Meanwhile, Frania’s uncle took her with him to Israel, where she changed her name to Shulamit and adapted well, learning the language, gaining an education, and eventually marrying and having a child. With her husband, a native Israeli, she returned to Poland to seek her rescuers—unfortunately, it was in vain. Only in 2001 did they manage to locate LeokadiaPauszewicz who, they discovered, had also been searching for her all those years. Their meeting was quite tearful. Marian and Katarzyna had already passed away. On December 19, 2011, Yad Vashem recognized Marian and Katarzyna Domanski and Leokadia Pauszewicz as Righteous Among the Nations.