According to a decree issued by the Germans on October 15, 1941, hiding Jews was punishable by death. Despite the highest penalty, which could be incurred by offering help, Poland is among the leaders of the Righteous Among the Nations, and there are 70 such people from Przemyśl and its surroundings.
In 1939, Przemyśl alone was inhabited by about 20,000 Jews, who constituted 34.1 percent of the total population.w. In April 1947, there were 593 of them. Thanks to the help of Poles, over a thousand survived.
On the 80th anniversary of the decree, two heroes of those times were honored: Michał Kruk, who had a commemorative plaque dedicated to him, and Maria Grzegorzewska, whose likeness can be seen on the mural The walls of the building of the Special School and Educational Center No. 1, which bears her name.
Michał Kruk ( ca. 1880 - September 6, 1943 ) During the German occupation, Michał Kruk was a retired railwayman and lived in a house at 36 Kopernika Street in Przemyśl. This street bordered the ghetto, which, as a result of illnesses, numerous executions and transportations of Jews to extermination camps, was systematically shrinking. Michał Kruk mediated in the contacts between Jews from the ghetto and Poles. He organized the escape of a large group of Jews to the Banasiewicz family, who lived in Orzechowce, a few kilometers from Przemyśl. He also provided assistance to Aleksander Hirschberg, a member of the Jewish Workers' Union "Bund". On 4 September 1943, the Germans under the command of SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Schwamberger came to Kruk's apartment. They searched Kruk's apartment and that of his nephew, Teodor Cais, for Jewish possessions. Then they arrested Michał Kruk. Two days later Kruk and Hirschberg were shot on Kopernika Street. Their bodies were publicly hanged to intimidate the citizens of Przemyśl. The place of Michał Kruk's burial remains unknown - Source: Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews During World War II in Markowa.
Maria Grzegorzewska (1888-1967) An eminent Polish psychologist and pedagogue, a professor of these two fields, during the war a member of the underground, within the framework of which she distributed weapons and conducted teaching studies. Prof. Grzegorzewska provided assistance to persecuted Jews. She was an outstanding scientist and activist, a talented teacher, and at the same time an exceptional human being, steadfast in her convictions, full of kindness for people, bringing help to those who needed it most, as she proved in 1939, during the occupation, when she saved many Jews' lives, and during the Warsaw Uprising, when she took duty as a nurse.
Photo: Katarzyna Gajda-Bator/IPN Rzeszów
