The Karwowski Family

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The Karwowski Family - a Story of Rescue

During the German occupation, Zygmunt and Mirosława Karwowski, as well as their daughter Lubomira, lived in Warsaw, at ul. Sienna 25.

In the autumn of 1943, they provided shelter for Lubomira's school friend, Krystyna Friedwald. The girl, originally from Lwów, had lost both her parents during the Holocaust - her father Wiktor was killed in the Warsaw ghetto, and her mother Matylda was imprisoned in Pawiak prison and was later sent to Auschwitz. Krystyna hid with the Karwowski family until the Warsaw Uprising.

Read the story of their aid in the account by writer and journalist Teresa Torańska.


“I was alone in the apartment. Krysia came in an awful state. She said, ‘Save me, I have no one else.’”

They had attended gymnasium together. Before that, Krysia had been at her friend's house, but she was not welcomed there.

"She told me that her father had been shot and that her mother had died in Auschwitz. We sat on the couch and cried. But I couldn’t make the decision on my own. My mother then came in and said, 'I have one daughter. Now, I will have two.' Only my father was a bit upset. After all, we knew the danger that it posed. We all faced the threat of death."

They watched death every day through their window. They lived in Warsaw on ul. Sienna, and the ghetto was just outside their window.

"A small Jewish boy would often run to us through a tunnel under the wall. My mother would bring him a plate of soup. Once a soldier saw him and killed him."

The parents obtained a Kennkarte [identity card] for Krysia. Together, they attended secret, underground school classes and walked the streets normally. In their two-room apartment, there was no hiding place, even though there was a German military post nearby in the same tenement.

"We simply had good neighbours", she said. "No one betrayed us.

Together, they went through the Uprising, the expulsion from Warsaw and the German camp. They also returned together.

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Teresa Torańska's text comes from the album "Polacy ratujący Żydów w czasie Zagłady. Przywracanie Pamięci” ["Poles Saving Jews During the Holocaust - Restoring the Memory"] (2008), published by the Office of the President of the Republic of Poland and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. It marked the occasion of Poles, being honoured with high decorations, by the Polish President, for having saved Jews.


Honouring the Karwowski family for having aided a Jewish woman during the Holocaust

On 28th March 2007, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem posthumously honoured Zygmunt and Mirosława Karwowski, as well as their daughter Lubomira Karwowską, with the title of Righteous Among the Nations

In addition, by order of the Polish President, on13th November 2008, Lubomira Karwowska was awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

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