Karolina Juszczykowska

Karolina Juszczykowska was born in Budkow, Poland, in 1898. The story of

her life and of her hiding Jews was found in the police and trial records no
one survived to testify.
On July 23, 1944 the police raided Juszczykowska's home and found two Jews
hiding in her cellar. The two fugitives were shot on the spot, and Karolina
was arrested and interrogated. She told the police, "I never went to school.
Until I was 13 years old, I lived with my parents, and then went to Germany
where I worked for five years for a farmer in Mecklenburg (a region in
Northern Germany) then I returned to Budkow, where I stayed with my
sister until 1934. I helped my sister with farm work. In 1934 I moved to
Tomaschow. Until the outbreak of the war I made a living in road
construction. Subsequently I had different jobs, as laundress, maid, etc., and
until my arrest I worked in the kitchen of OT (Organization Todt which
implemented major engineering and armament projects) in Tomaszow. I am
single and have a daughter that was born out of wedlock. She is 20 years
old. I have no assets and don't expect to have any in the future. I don't
belong to any political party or any other organization. I don't care about
politics".
She then went on and told her interrogators that six weeks prior to her arrest
she had met the two young men in the street. They asked her to shelter
them, and promised to pay her 300 Zloty per week for both of them. Being in
desperate need of money, she decided to accept their offer, even though she

was aware that they were Jews, and knowing that by hiding them she was
risking death. She took them to her home. They slept on the floor and she
would lock them in when she went to work. She also mentioned that a
neighbor was aware of their presence in her home. Not being able to read or
write, she signed her statement with three crosses.

Faced with the grave accusation of having hidden Jews, Karolina probably
chose to say she was motivated by greed rather than by the wish to
undermine Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews. In fact, by that time,
considering the war economy and in view of the fact that salaries had been
frozen by the Germans and that the prices had soared, the sum of 300 Zloty
per week was very modest, and the two Jews, who had been on the run for
some time, probably had little money left anyway.
On August 10, 1944 Karolina Juszczykowska was transferred to the prison in
Piotrkow awaiting trial. Two weeks later, on August 23, 1944, the Piotrkow
Sondergericht (special courts set up in parallel to the German judicial system
to summarily sentence political opponents) condemned her to death. Despite
having sentenced her to death, the three judges, von Seydewitz, Brand and
Dr. Woyte, added a special plea requesting to pardon her. "We recommend
pardoning the accused who was sentenced to death, because her hiding the
Jews was not motivated by her wish to prevent their deportation or to profit
from it. The accused is in a difficult financial situation and succumbed to the
temptation to improve her life. 300 Zloty per week for hiding and upkeep of

two Jews is not a high payment under present circumstances. It therefore

seems to the court that the crime of the accused is not so grave as to justify
her execution, especially in view of the fact that this sentence will not deter
others." The final statement was probably due to the fact that all the area's
Jews had already been murdered, and therefore the judges did not believe
that there were any Jews left in hiding.
The request to mitigate her sentence was turned down, and Karolina
Juszczykowska was transferred to the Frengesheim prison in Frankfurt am
Main, Germany, where she was executed on January 9, 1945. The following
day the Frankfurt prosecutor informed his colleague in Piotrkow in writing
that the sentence had been executed.
The names of the two Jews that were killed in Juszczykowska's cellar remain
unknown. In her interrogation Karolina was only able to provide their first
names: Janek and Paul, and told her interrogators that they were originally
from Tomaszow. Most of the town's remaining Jews had been sent to
Treblinka in January 1943, leaving only a few hundred Jews behind. In May
1943 these last Jews were taken away for forced labor in the Radom region.
Janek and Paul probably managed to escape and had been hiding in the area
until they arrived at Juszczykowska's home.

Jeanne Daman
In 1942 Jeanne Daman was a young teacher in Brussels at a time when the
Jewish community was setting up its own kindergartens, after the children

were no longer allowed to attend school together with non-Jewish pupils.

Fela Perelman, a leading figure in the organized rescue efforts for Jewish
children, needed trained and qualified personnel for the many children who
were left without schools, and upon the recommendations of Mr. Tits,
director-general of educational services in Brussels, she asked Daman to join
the staff of her school Nos Petits, with some 325 children. Soon she began
to take an active part in the rescue of Jewish children.
Daman was a Catholic and had previously not known any Jews, but she had
grown up with a strong sense of right and wrong. She decided to respond
positively to the invitation to join Perelman and assist Jewish children,
especially after observing that the Jewish community was becoming
increasingly isolated by the acts of discrimination against them. She became
head mistress of Nos Petits in rue de la Roue where she witnessed the mass
arrest of Jews coupled with the brutality shown towards them. This
experience was to change her life.
Every school day some children were found to be absent, as it turned out
that the families were rounded up. Other children became instant orphans,
when their parents were taken away while they were at school. Mothers who
foresaw the worst, approached the school for assistance.
Soon it became clear that the school had to be closed in order to save the
children, and that the children were to be moved to private Belgian families.
Contact was made with the ONE (l'Oeuvre Nationale de l'Enfance), mostly in
the person of Nelly Lameere, Mrs. Volon, (an assistant of Yvonne Nevejean,

director of the childrens chain of vacation homes) and Jean Herinckx, (mayor
of Uccle, with whom there was daily contact). Thanks to their cooperation,
Daman was able to whisk the children to safety.
After the Jewish school was closed by the authorities, Daman was asked by
Perelman to continue her rescue efforts, now of a clandestine nature. An
ever-increasing number of children became instant orphans and someone
had to accompany them to their hiding places. Daman often escorted them
and kept in touch with them continuously. She traveled all over Belgium, for
example, to see Father Rausch in Felenne, in the southern part of the Namur
province on the French border, who had taken in fifty of these children. The
work became increasingly secretive, and sometimes she had to collect
children at tram-stops.
As the roundups became more frequent, Perelman and Daman also dealt
with adults who needed shelter; they developed a network of Jewish women
placed as maids in Belgian households. Daman took them to their future
employers and provided them with false identity papers and ration cards,
which she usually received from Perelmans husband, Chaim. The
placements did not always turn out well and often had to be changed.
Daman also tried to relay information to these women about their children
who were in hiding elsewhere.
Perelman (who was called Dumont during the war) introduced Daman to
Albert Domb of the Jewish underground, who asked her to assist with the
liquidation of collaborators. Jeanne was asked to coordinate the timing and

to track down the whereabouts of these people. Jeanne then assumed a new
identity and became a social worker with the Secours dHiver (Winter Help, a
welfare organization set up by the Germans). Her new connections and her
uniform opened new doors to her.
Towards the end of the war she also became involved with the illegal work of
the MRB (Mouvement Royal Belge), which dealt with operations prior to the
liberation, and for which she used to transport arms on her bike. As an
Intelligence agent she was active in the Brussels corps of the Arme Belge
des Partisans (Belgian Partisans Army).
After the war, she assisted in returning young Jewish orphans to their families
and helped with the special care of those children who had returned from the
camps. In 1946 she left for the United States and helped with fundraising for
Israel through the UJA (United Jewish Appeal). On October 12, 1980 she
received the Entraide medal from the Belgian Jewish Committee 1940-45,
under the patronage of the King of Belgium.