Narrative of  Wojciech Kuropieska

Jews Behind the Wall

“Facing the Germans we had no chance, absolutely no chance,” explained Wojciech Kuropieska during our interview with him on March 22nd, 2011. Suspenseful, his story explained how people struggled to survive the Holocaust in Poland. It helped our group understand how the Warsaw Uprising affected people in different ways. During his fight to protect the Jewish people, Wojciech Kuropieska saved more than thirty-five people and by doing this, he saved a generation.    

Wojciech Kuropieska was about 7 years of age when the war broke out in Warsaw, Poland. He lived on the outskirts of Mokotów with his mother and little sister in a three-room apartment. His mother was a seamstress who made traditional Jewish orthodox clothes but then changed her field expertise to making suits for workers such as train conductors. Therefore, Mr. Kuropieska’s family was middle class. His father, being an officer of the Polish army, was captured by the Nazi army and sent to a prisoner of war (POW) camp until the end of the war.

When the war began, Mr. Kuropieska’s mother wanted to earn extra money by renting one of the rooms in her family’s apartment. One afternoon a deaf and mute man came to see if he could rent the room. He came with a woman, (who would act as his translator) and a little boy about the same age as Mr. Kuropieska. The man claimed that he and the woman were the boy’s aunt and uncle and that they needed to find a place for the boy to stay. Mr. Kuropieska’s mother realized that the boy was Jewish because of her many Jewish acquaintances but decided to play along with the charade. Eventually she confronted the aunt and explained, “Look, you are safe here. I know you are Jewish.” Soon after the family built a secret hiding place behind the kitchen wall, in which the little boy could hide if something went wrong.

“Initially [the boy] was going out and then some rumours were spread and some people did not like it and some people were afraid. So they [the family] made a kind of a theatre. They ordered a horse and wagon and they pretended that he is moving out, that he is going back to the country. It was a big rumour. They were going away to find a new place. When no one was looking in the night, he snuck in [back into the apartment], But then he was not allowed to go out. He was sitting in his room and he was not allowed to wear shoes. He could move around only in socks and he couldn't go to the balcony so no one could see him.” Soon the word that the Kuropieska family had a shelter for Jews spread like a wild fire. Almost 35 Jews found shelter in Kuropieska’s family home. “They were for three days, for a week, for a month. And two brothers, one called Isak, who is now a pensioned gimnazium (middle school) professor in Jerusalem, was nearly two years living in our house, and his brother Joseph was for six or seven months.” This act of compassion towards humanity was definitely worth the inconvenience. Mr. Kuropieska and his family were responsible for saving many lives. Even to this day, he is still friends with most of the people his age that passed through his house. His mother received the Righteous among the Nations award in 1967 for having saved Jews during war and planted a tree in front of the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem. Though Mr. Kuropieska was very lucky, he did have two very traumatic experiences.

Living in around Warsaw was not always easy. At times Mr. Kuropieska was sent to his country home to live with his grandparents. To get to the country he took one of the city trains. After a few minutes of his journey the train passed by the Warsaw Ghetto. Not knowing better Mr. Kuropieska looked out the window. A big mistake. The little boy saw thousands of children’s corpses coating the pavement as though to keep it warm. He then turned his head quickly to the other window in horror. At that very moment, he saw women lying dead on the endless streets outside of the ghetto. Again, his eyes filled with horror as they would a few months later in Praga (the other side of the Wisła River).

The Jewish people in the ghetto had their own meal service at the beginning of the holocaust. Their meals would be served in Praga. One day Mr. Kuropieska happened to be passing by the long line of starving people. As he looked at them, he noticed that the people were served their “main course”, or first helping, and then for dessert the people were beaten. However, soon Mr. Kuropieska would be faced with an even more emotionally draining situation, the Warsaw Uprising.  

The Warsaw Uprising did not affect the Kuropieska family as much as it did the people in the centre of Warsaw and overall the family was very lucky. The house that Mr. Kuropieska lived in was right next to a potato and tomato field and so the family had an adequate supply of food to last for the sixty-three days of constant fighting. The house was also out of the bombing area so the family members were somewhat safe but the emotional shock and stress of watching their beloved city burn to flames was immense.  

After the fighting was over Mr.Kuropieska’s father was released from the POW camp in Germany, unharmed. Though the war was over, his father was aware that times were going to change, there was going to be a dictatorship in Poland. Mr.Kuropieska was sent to a small town in England where he went to a boarding school and learned English. After Mr.Kuropieska finished school, he went back to live in his “beloved city of Warsaw” where he will spend the rest of his life.