Could someone hold deeply prejudiced views and yet still risk everything to save the people they opposed?
Today I want to find out a little about Zofia Kossak-Szczucka. She was a successful Polish writer and resistance member who helped to establish Żegota, the underground organisation created to rescue Jewish people during the Holocaust.
Zofia was born on the 10th of August 1889 in Kośmin, then part of the Russian Empire. She came from a well-known artistic family. Her grandfather, Juliusz Kossak, and her uncle, Wojciech Kossak, were both celebrated Polish painters.
She married Stefan Szczucki, but after his death she moved to Górki Wielkie in southern Poland. In 1925, she married her second husband, Zygmunt Szatkowski.
Before the Second World War, Zofia became known for her historical and religious writing. Her novels often explored Polish history, Christianity and the Crusades, and several were translated into other languages.
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Zofia became involved in the resistance. Using the code name Weronika, she worked for underground newspapers and helped to establish the Catholic resistance organisation known as the Front for the Rebirth of Poland.
In the summer of 1942, German forces began the mass deportation of Jewish people from the Warsaw Ghetto. In response, Zofia wrote and secretly distributed a leaflet called Protest.
The leaflet condemned the killings and criticised governments, organisations and ordinary people who remained silent. Zofia argued that anyone who witnessed mass murder without objecting shared responsibility for what was happening.
Zofia openly expressed nationalist and antisemitic views. But, she believed that these prejudices could never justify persecution. As a Catholic, she argued that she had a moral duty to oppose the destruction of Poland’s Jewish population.
Zofia helped to create the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews. This later developed into the Council to Aid Jews, better known by its code name, Żegota.
Żegota provided Jewish people with hiding places, forged identity documents, money, food and medical assistance. It was the only state-sponsored organisation in Europe created specifically to rescue Jewish people during the Second World War.
On the 27th of September 1943, Zofia was arrested by a German patrol in Warsaw. The authorities did not initially realise that they had captured an important resistance figure. She was imprisoned at Pawiak before being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
When her true identity was discovered, she was returned to Warsaw for interrogation and sentenced to death. Members of the Polish underground managed to secure her release in July 1944. Soon afterwards, she took part in the Warsaw Uprising.
After the war, Zofia left communist-controlled Poland and lived in Britain for several years. She eventually returned to Poland in 1957 and continued writing until she died on the 9th of April 1968 at the age of 78.
She was later recognised by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for her contribution to rescuing Jewish people.
Do you think someone’s courageous actions can be remembered while still acknowledging their troubling beliefs?
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