Ireneusz Rajchowski was fourteen years old when his mother, Maria Rajchowska, brought home a man named Witold Góra, whom she met while working at a factory in the ghetto at Pawia 38. Góra stayed with the Rajchowskis from autumn of 1942 to spring of 1943.
The entire Rajchowski family selflessly devoted themselves to helping Jews. Ireneusz’s aunt, Kazimiera Kurek, hid a Jew in her apartment in the Praga district. Another aunt sold hats smuggled out of the ghetto, exchanging them for food and money. It was during one of these transfers of goods that her husband was killed.
Ireneusz tried to help the children coming out of the ghetto. Often, he would bring them food. In mid-April, 1943, Maria led a teenage girl out of the ghetto. When nobody showed up to claim her after the outbreak of the ghetto uprising, Ireneusz took the girl himself by ship to the village of Mniszew outside Warsaw, where she stayed in hiding in a cabin in the woods. Her further whereabouts are unknown.
Before the war ended, the Rajchowskis were placed in a labour camp in Germany. Afterwards, Witold Góra, who had stayed in Poland, found the Rajchowski family in Gdańsk. In 1986, he gave his account of the help he received to the Yad Vashem and Jewish Historical Institutes.
