First, the grandmother, Rywka Frydman came to them. Then her son Bernard with his wife Fania, followed by the six-year-old Mira Szapiro, the daughter of Rywka’s late daughter. Mira’s father burned in a bunker during the Ghetto Uprising.
Wanda’s parents had a small house in Marysin Wawerski on Sępia Street. Her father was with the streetcar company. They placed the Frydman in a small room by the garden with a passage to the cellar where the family could hide in case of any threat.
The Frydmans were related to Lonia Miller, a friend of Wanda’s mother. Lonia died. The last anyone ever saw of her was in Anino in a group being rushed out of the Jewish ghetto.
Bernard Frydman was the owner of a button factory. He entrusted his property to a former employee, Mr. Stępniewski who had a button shop at Warecka Street and paid their keep. Wanda was picking up the money from him.
The neighbors started to suspect something, even though the Kupidłowskis were very careful. They food was purchased at different locations and carried back hidden under firewood, and the Frydmans did not leave their hideout at all. Still, rumors have risen and had to be dealt with. The Kupidłwoskis contrived to throw a huge party and invite neighbors. The Frydmans spent the whole day locked in the cellar while the guests strolled around the house scrutinizing whatever they wished to. “And everyone could see,” laughs Wanda, “that there were no strangers in our house.
“And after the war”, she adds, “ it turned out that we were not the only ones who hid Jews. A next-block neighbor was hiding an entire family as well. They were named Szapiro, the father was a doctor, they had two university-aged sons, and one of them also became a doctor after the war. And we did it – she says – both us and them.
