Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, later Zofia Kossak-Szatkowska, de domożydowski ATAK ZOFIA KOSSAK – SZCZUCKA Kossak, primo voto Szczucka, secundo voto Szatkowska (born 10 August 1889 in Kośmin, changed 9 April 1968 in Bielsko-Biała) is simply a Polish novelist, a associate in the opposition movement of aid to Jews of the organization Żegota. According to the German occupier’s legislation, aid to Jews was punished with the death of assisting persons as well as their families.
In the face of the German crimes committed on Polish Jews, she wrote a celebrated paper entitled “Protest” signed by the Polish Revival Front, which is simply a continuation of the pre-war Catholic Action, as its president:
"Protest!" was issued in a conspiracy in 5000 pieces in Warsaw on 11 August 1942 in the form of a poster. It was published a fewer weeks after the launch of a major liquidation action in Warsaw Ghetto, from Germany – within Grossaktion in Warschau – they began exporting judaic people to concentration camps.
The intent of the publication was to find the position of Polish Catholics towards extermination of Jews (Holocaust, Holocaust, Shoah), carried out by the German authorities in the territory occupied Poland. The paper was an appeal to the Polish Catholic community and referred to the principles of Catholic religion and universal moral values Christianity – Love of a Neighbor, independent of a professed worldview or religion.
The protest can be divided into 2 parts. The first is descriptive and shows the dense surviving conditions of Jews in the ghetto and the circumstances of their export to German concentration camps as part of the action Grossaktion in Warschau.
‘W Warsaw GhettoA fewer 100 1000 convicts are waiting to die. There is no hope of rescue for them, no aid coming from anywhere. The streets run by the torturers, shooting at anyone who dares to leave the house. They shoot like anyone standing in a window. There are unburied bodies on the road.”
The second part represents the world's silent attitude towards these phenomena. The paper marks the silence of the world's public opinion towards the Holocaust of Jews.
It honors both the silence of Poles and besides Allies, as well as the Jews themselves, whose communities are spread all over the world. Their attitude is likened to symbolic washing of hands Pontius Pilatewho, having approved the judgement on Christ He washed his hands in front of a crowd demanding the crucifixion of the accused.
Zofia Kossak – Szczucka wrote:
“The planet looks at this crime, scarier than anything that has always seen it happen—and is silent. The slaughter of millions of defenseless people is carried out among universal, sinister silence. England and America do not take the floor, even the influential global Jewry, so delicate to all its hurt. The Poles are silent. The dying Jews are surrounded by the washers themselves of the Pilates.”
In the next passage of the text by Zofia Kossak – Szczucka condemns this silence, indicating its moral implications.
"This silence can no longer be tolerated. It is wicked.... The crime must not be kept passive. Who is silent in the face of execution – becomes a partner of the murderer. He who does not condemn – he approves, so we, Catholics, Poles speak. We do not want to be Pilates.”
In the last lines of the protest Kossak expresses strong opposition to the crimes committed by the Germans on Jews in Poland. He points out that Poles were forced to watch this bloody spectacle as a consequence of historical events. German-inspired crimes committed in their country do not consent and do not want to participate. He besides points out that by fueling anti-Semitic sentiments, Germany wants to share its work for the crimes committed on Jews besides with another occupied European nations in order to partially avoid future consequences.
“He who does not realize it, who proudly, the free future of Poland would dare to combine with evil joy with the misfortune of his neighbour – so he is neither a Catholic nor a Pole!
Zofia Kossak – Szczucka was the daughter of Tadeusz Kossak (a duplicate brother of Wojciech) and Anna Kisielnicka – Kossak, the uncle's sister of Magdalena Samozwaniec and poet Maria Pawlikowska – Jasnarzewska and granddaughter of Julius Kossak.
In most publications, the year 1890 is the date of her birth; after reaching previously unknown documents, it turned out that she had been born a year earlier.
She spent her childhood and youth in Lublin and Volyn.
At first she studied at home, then in 1906 she worked as a teacher in Warsaw. In accordance with the household tradition from 1912 to 13, she studied painting at the School of Fine Arts in Warsaw and then drawing at the École des Beaux – Arts in Geneva.
In 1915 she married Stefan Szczucki and lived with her husband in Nowosielice, Volyn. There, in 1916 their first boy Julius was born. A year later, in 1917 the second, Tadeusz. besides in 1917 she and her household survived the period of bloody peasant appearances and the Bolshevik invasion.
Written memories of this period, published in 1922 under the title “The Fire”, were her appropriate literary debut.
In 1923, after her husband died in Lviv, the author moved with her sons to her parents. She lived in the village of Górki Wielkie, in Cieszynska Silesia.
On 14 April 1925, she remarried to WP officer Zygmunt Szatkowski.
In 1926 her 3rd son, Witold Szatkowski, was born, and the firstborn, Juliusz Szczucki, died. In 1928 she gave birth to a daughter, Anna Szatkowska.
In 1932 she was awarded the literary prize of the Silesian Voivodeship.
In 1935, her father, Tadeusz Kossak, died.
In 1936, she received the Golden Wawrzyn Academical Polish Academy of Literature, the most crucial institution of Polish culture during the interwar period, and in 1937 she was awarded the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Revival.
In 1939, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka left Górki Wielkie and moved to Warsaw. In the capital, she became active in conspiracy and charity activities. In 1941, together with her friends and priest Edmund Krauze of the parish of the Holy Cross, she formed the Front of the Revival of Poland and headed it. She besides collaborated with the political-military Catholic underground organisation of the Union.
The author besides co-edited the first underground writing “Poland Lives”. In August 1942 she published her protest about the Holocaust, simultaneously calling on Poles to aid the Jews sentenced to death by the Germans.
In September 1942, together with Wanda Krahelska, she set up the Provisional Aid Committee for Jews, shortly converted into a Council of Aid for Jews "Żegota".
For this activity, after the war, she was awarded the medal “The Righteous Among the Nations”. In 1943 her second son, Tadeusz Szczucki, died in the German Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
She herself was arrested on September 27, 1943 by the Gestapo and was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau on October 5, 1943. In 1944 she was transported to Warsaw, to Pawiak and sentenced to death.
Thanks to the efforts of the Underground authorities, she was freed at the end of July 1944 and took an active part in the Warsaw Uprising.
After the fall of the Uprising, she stayed in Czestochowa until 1945. There she described her memories from the camp in her book “From the Void”. In 1945 she left on a mission of the Polish Red Cross to London and remained on forced emigration.
For 12 years, she and her husband worked together on the Troswell farm in Cornwall, continuing her writing work. She was admitted to a private audience with the British Queen, at the Afternoon Part in Windsor.
In the West, her work enjoyed increasing popularity, books were on bestseller lists, and the fresh “Without Arms” was headed by the Book of the period in the United States.
In the alleged People's Poland in 1951 all her works were censored and were immediately withdrawn from libraries.
After returning to the country in 1957, she settled again in Górki Wielkie, in the "Garden House", as the old court burned down in 1945.
As a journalist, she worked primarily with the Catholic press. Thanks to the ability of colourful imaging, large cognitive valors and rolling narrative, most of her historical novels besides gained popularity among children.
In 1964, she was 1 of the signatories to the celebrated patriotic letter 34, in which she joined the protest of writers in defence of freedom of expression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_34
She was honored to belong to the Knights and infirmary Order of St. Lazarus from Jerusalem, by receiving the large Cross of Merit.
She died on 9 April 1968 in Bielsko-Biala, buried in a parish cemetery in Górki Wielkie next to her father Tadeusz Kossak and boy Juliusz Szczucki.
In 1968, a museum of her name was created in Górki Wielkie and in 1984, the Zofia Kossak – Szczucka Society.
Spoil of the memory of Sophia Kossak
In the judaic monthly “Midrasz” in the article “The Righteous Among the planet Nations. The hard rescue and bitterness” Dr. Alina all falsified the fact about the function of this celebrated Polish Catholic author Zofia Kossak-Szczucka. Writing about the function of Polish “Sprawodnych” saving Jews, Alina The full immodest mentions Zofia Kossak – Szczucka, but only in an highly pejorative context.
Writing about it in the only conviction states that before the war on the “Jewish case “Only secular Catholic activists, specified as Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, took the level and expressed their racist views.
Attacking Zofia Kossak-Szczucka as an alleged racist from before planet War II, without trying to paper this fact, At the same time, Alina completely ignores the immense function played by Zofia Kossak-Szczuck during this war, as well as that she risked her life as a Catholic, helping her judaic neighbors, even though she had a very critical opinion about the attitude of Jews to Poles.
Even highly biased, full of prejudices towards Poles, Dr. Alina the full of the judaic Historical Institute Dr. Andrzej Żbikowski has been able to compose very different words about Zofia Kossak – Szczucka:
"In view of the widespread close indifference to the destiny of Jews, the more respect is raised by the attitude of a group of Catholic intellectuals, with Zofia Kossak – Szczucka at the head, who in the autumn of 1942 set up the Provisional Committee for Aid to Jews at the underground national delegate of the London government (...)" (cf. A. Żbikowski: "Jews. Anti-Semitism. Holocaust", Wrocław 2001, p. 36).
About Zofia Kossak-Szczucka is written by judaic investigator Michał Grynberg in his celebrated “Book of the Righteous”, published in 1993 in Warsaw.
In this book on pp. 254-255 Grynberg posted an extended biography of Sophia Kossak-Szczucka, writing about it in superlatives themselves.
He said, among another things, that “Kossak – Szczucka, a writer, a profoundly believing Catholic woman, began efforts during the business to make an organization that would aid Jews. She was besides co-author of the concept of setting up with the Delegation of the Interim Government of the Committee for Assistance to the Jews of Konrad Żegota.
Such a committee began operations in September 1942 and operated until December, after which it became the Council of Aid to the Jews."
Grynberg recalled that in 1985, in 17 years after his death, Zofia Kossak – Szczucka was awarded the medal "The Righteous Among the Nations".
Irena Sendlerova, decorated with the medal “The Righteous Among the Nations” for saving about 2,500 judaic children, recalled in her account to the Israeli Yad Vashem that it was Zofia Kossak-Szczucka who organized the first aid for the judaic population as part of the SOS organization (Social Self-defense Organization) (according to A. Żbikowski's already quoted book “Poles and Jews under German business 1939-1945” Warsaw 2006, p. 426).
In the same book (on p. 186), the author states that the Social Self-defense Organization, headed by Zofia Kossak – Szczucka Department of Human Protection, displayed “great activity in rescuing judaic children”.
The function of Zofia Kossak – Szczucka in rescuing Jews during the war was highly assessed by the judaic Historical Institute by investigator Teresa Prekerov.
In his basic survey of judaic past during planet War II and business T. Prekerova described the merits of Zofia Kossak – Szczucka in saving Jews very widely.
Teresa Prekerova has devoted quite a few space to quoting texts by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka appealing to the Polish society for aid to the hidden Jews, “taking risks even to her own life and to her loved ones” (cf. “The latest past of Jews in Poland in outline (until 1950)”. Warsaw 1993, pp. 351, 355).
Zofia Kossak – Szczucka is 1 of the main protagonists of the celebrated book Teresa Prekerowa "Conspiracy Council of Aid to Jews in Warsaw 1942-1945", published in Warsaw in 1982.
Teresa Prekerova writes in her book (p. 52) about Sophia Kossak-Szczucka:
"Another centre, which has managed to aid refugees from behind the walls for respective months and saw the urgent request for its enlargement, was a small, but very active, Catholic socio-educational organization of the Polish Revival Front.
His chairman, the loud author Zofia Kossak – Szczucka focused a group of people around him – partially outside the FOP, conducting care activities, which besides included Jews.
backing for charitable purposes, among others, to save from the inevitable death of Polish Jews was taken from gifts offered to social aid by the more wealthy representatives of the Polish population (including the landowners and the intelligence of free professions).
They were received mainly through the procedures of Sophia Kossak. Its links with the pre-war military environment enabled the transportation of "Aryan papers" to its subjects, and close contacts with the clergy – placement of women and children in spiritual homes. ...
From the beginning of the occupation, Zofia Kossak – Szczucka had no hesitation erstwhile the problem of assistance, which she thought was necessary, was involved; she was able to go to Krakow and include her own household in various dangerous actions."
In another place of his book (p. 53) T. Prekerov writes: "Already, in the beginning of August, the Front of the Revival of Poland released 5 1000 copies of a peculiar leaflet of the pen of Zofia Kossak "Protest", calling on believers, regardless of their political beliefs, to take a firm stand against the crime:
“He who is silent in the face of execution becomes a partner of the murderer. He who does not condemn approves'.
Prekerova writes about the importance of establishing the Social Committee on judaic Aid on 27 September 1942, which was entrusted by the delegation by Zofia Kossak – Szczucka.
As T. Prekerov writes ("Conspiracy Council..., p. 54): "Whose actions and pressures have yet decided to set up a Committee, it is hard to find today. Historian Bieńkowski was credited by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka.
How dangerous were Z. Kossak's relentless efforts to save the Jews, as evidenced by T. Prekerov's another statements (v. 177):
“(...)The Catastrophe could besides have caused the Germans to halt a tenant hiding even outside the house, even after moving to another flat (...)”
Zofia Kossak – Szczucka first helped Jews
And here are any another testimonies about the function of Sophia Kossak – Szczucka:
According to the deceased in the concentration camp of the celebrated conspiratorial activist Halina Krahelska, it was written by Zofia Kossak – Szczucka, the call of the Polish Revival Front of 11 August 1942. The “Protest” was the first to break the embarrassing silence about the extermination of Jews (according to “Poles and Jews under occupation...” p. 679).
The authors of basic works on the war times agree that it was Zofia Kossak-Szczucka who initiated the largest underground organization of aid to Jews – the Council of Aid to Jews, Żegota.
She was the creator of the code name “Żegota” and the real engine of the organization.
This concept was yet realised by Zofia Kossak (Weronika), the president of the Catholic social organization The Front of Polish Revival (FOP) and Wanda Krahelska-Philipovich (Alina).
In his book “About the Kielce Pogrom” (IPN, Warszawa 2006), historian Dr. Jan Żaryn wrote (on page 76) that:
"(...) In 1942, a peculiar cell coordinating the actions of thousands of conspirators – the Council of Aid to the Jews – was created by the Catholic author Zofia Kossak – Szczucka at the Government Delegate to the country. ...’.
In the same book “About the Kielce Pogrom” (p. 21) about the merits of Zofia Kossak – Szczucka in the rescue of Jews, the historian Bożena Szaynok wrote about the environment of “Gazeta Wyborcza”, stating, among others, that “in risking her life, she saved Jews from death.”
Very extended information about the immense merits of Zofia Kossak – Szczucka in rescuing Jews is found in Mirosław Pałaszewski’s survey “Zofia Kossak in the years of planet War II” (“Independence and Memory”, Warsaw 1995, No. 4, pp. 49-94), and in the book “Zofia Kossak” (Warsaw 1999).
Zofia Kossak – Szczucka was arrested in 1943, was imprisoned in Pawiak and in Oświęcim, and was freed from there only thanks to the strenuous procedures of the Underground.
Alina The full in her text did not mention the large size of Sophia Kossak – Szczucka's efforts to save Jews during the German business at hazard of her own life.
She accused of racism of a author who was so well deservedly awarded the medal "The Righteous Among the Nations".
Racism by definition is hatred, racial discrimination (from le racisme from la race – family, race, group of relatives), a set of views proclaiming the inequality of people, and the resulting ideology assumes the superiority of any races over others.
Alina All writing about racism of a individual of the Slavic race, saving the lives of Semites should not be afraid with history, giving a compromising historian thesis and unworthy, not technological statements.
Alina All her accusations were cast without any concrete evidence, referring to the writer's prewar publications.
In addition, racism is associated with fanaticism and as I mentioned with hatred. Is it possible, in the case of Slavic women, Polish women, Zofia Kossak – Szczucka, who did so much to save Jews, endangering their own existence, to talk about fanatical hatred of Semites?
There is no uncertainty that Zofia Kossak – Szczucka was very critical of Jews in her pre-war publications. This is written by judaic author Anna Landau-Cchaik in her book “In 1 Steel House...” (Warsaw 1998, pp. 112-113).
But is criticism racist?
At the same time, however, Anna Landau – Czajka reminds us that it was at that time that Zofia Kossak-Szczucka stressed this, for which she was criticized by any people with nationalistic views, that “the only Christian attitude would be to admit the baptized hebrew as a brother and to get free of prejudice against him”
(A. Landau-Chajka, op. cit., p. 113).
In an article published in the Poznań “Kultura” in 1936, “There are no situations without a way out”, Zofia Kossak – Szczucka called for moderation in attacks on Jews and, above all, to exclude the usage of force against them (according to the text of K. Malinowski OFM Conv., published in the book “A neighbour of his... Materials from the Symposium of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe – Jews – Masani", Lublin 1997, p. 26).
A fanatical sower of antipolonism, Prof. UJ. Jan Błoński attacked Zofia Kossak – Szczucka for a fragment of her 1942 "Protest" leaflet.
It is worth reminding at this point that prof. Jan Błoński was in 1953 together with Wisława Szymborska, Sławomir Mrożek, Bruno Miecugow (father of Grzegorz Miecugow) and another footstools of communist power in the People's Poland alleged People's Poland, signatory of the resolution of the 53 literates of the Union of Polish Literature condemning priests of the Krakow metropolitan curia sentenced to death.
A false “moralist” Jan Błoński, who signed a Stalinist letter in 1953 attacking priests from Kraków metropolitan curia, tried in a fabricated trial, now accused Catholic author of anti-Semitism.
And it was not crucial for him that Zofia Kossak – Szczucka, was willing to sacrifice her own life to save the Jews. Prof. Jan Błoński, on the pages of the “Wszszechny Tygodnik” accused Poles of “criminal indifference to the demolition of the Warsaw ghetto”.
It turned out rather rapidly after 1945 that there were not many Jews who hated Poles more than Germans. He wrote about this, so vividly, celebrated student of judaic origin, Prof. Ludwik Hirszfeld in unfortunately besides small known letter to Jerzy Borejsz from 1947.
Jerzy Borejsza, actually Benjamin Goldberg (b. 14 July1905 In Warsawed. 19 January1952 in Warsaw) – publicist, propagandist, Communist activist, political and cultural, publisher, nationality Jewish; Brother Józef Rozanski.
Józef Rozański, Joseph Goldberg, utilized both the name Jacek and Joseph after the war (b. 13 July1907 In Warsawed. 21 August1981 in Warsaw) – lawyer, officer NKWD and MVPMember to the Legislative Sejm; Brother Jerzy Borejsz.
How different she referred to the flyers already mentioned by Błoński, T. Prekerov, quoting how a pair of hiding Jews reacted to her:
“They experienced a deep encounter with the “Protest” of Sophia Kossak – Szczucka, whose words, the first ones they read on the side of the “Aryan”, meant a return to the planet of truly human values. Learning almost his fragments by heart, they both, as they say, cried."
In the end it is worth asking questions:
– What historical documentation is based on Dr. Alina All, a student of the judaic Historical Institute claiming in an interview with “Rzeczpospolita” that “Poles as a nation failed to pass the exam”?
And then:
“...In a sense, Poles are liable for the death of all 3 million Jews – citizens of the Second Polish Republic...” says historian from the judaic Historical Institute Alina All.
Rz: Are Poles co-responsible for the Holocaust?
Alina Whole:
“...to any extent, yes. The reason for this was prewar anti-Semitism, which did not morally prepare them for what was to happen during the Holocaust. 2 institutions were the bearer of this anti-Semitism. Groups forming a national camp and the Catholic Church. This second 1 began to favour the end of 1935. As a result, high-volume confessional writings began preaching anti-Semitic propaganda. For example, “The small Journal” by Kolbe...” http://www.rp.pl/article/310528.html
– Is Dr. Alina All going to apologize to Poles for trying to falsify the image of the heroic Catholic author of Poland, Zofia Kossak – Szczucka, which she “played” in the periodical “Midrasz” calling her a racist?
– Will Władysław Bartoszewski, self-proclaimed professor, , a direct observer of the dedication of the author Sophia Kossak – Szczucka in rescuing Jews from death, be able to attend any protest about the abuse of the memory of Zofia Kossak – Szczucka?
– Will the representatives of the Polish Ministry of the Interior, financiing the letter “Midrasz”, which published specified an anti-Polish provocative text, be able to respond to this dirty matter?
Is Dr. Alina all racist?
Documents, sources, quotations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zofia_Kossak-Szczucka.
http://www.jerzyrobertnouk.com/articles/Our_Dziennik/2007/06.02.htm
