Zofia Kossak-Szczucka ( (also Kossak-Szatkowska); 10 August 1889 – 9 April 1968) was a Polish writer and
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
resistance fighter. She co-founded two wartime Polish organizations:
Front for the Rebirth of Poland and
Żegota, set up to assist Polish Jews to escape the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
. In 1943, she was arrested by the Germans and sent to
Auschwitz concentration camp, but survived the war.
Biography
Early life
Zofia Kossak was the daughter of
Tadeusz Kossak
Tadeusz Kossak (1 January 1857 in Paris – 3 July 1935 in Górki Wielkie), was born into a noted Polish family of artists and writers. He was an officer in the Polish Army, a freedom fighter, and owner of a country estate in Górki Wielkie tha ...
, who was the twin brother of painter
Wojciech Kossak, and granddaughter of painter
Juliusz Kossak
Juliusz Fortunat Kossak ( Nowy Wiśnicz, 15 December 1824 – 3 February 1899, Kraków) was an Austrian Polish historical painter and master illustrator who specialized in battle scenes, military portraits and horses. He was the progenitor of a ...
. She married twice. In 1923, following the death of her first husband Stefan Szczucki in
Lwiw, she settled in the village of
Górki Wielkie in
Cieszyn Silesia where in 1925 she married Zygmunt Szatkowski.
Activism
She was associated with the
Czartak
Czartak () was a regional literary group in Poland, founded after World War I by Emil Zegadłowicz. Its most famous member was Zofia Kossak-Szczucka. Other members included Edward Kozikowski, Jan Nepomucen Miller and Janina Brzostowska.
Czar ...
literary group, and wrote mainly for the Catholic press. Her best-known work from that period is ''The Blaze'', a memoir of the
Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1936, she received the prestigious Gold Laurel (''Złoty Wawrzyn'') of the
Polish Academy of Literature
The Polish Academy of Literature ( pl, Polska Akademia Literatury, PAL) was one of the most important state institutions of literary life in the Second Polish Republic, operating between 1933 and 1939 with the headquarters in Warsaw. It was foun ...
. Kossak-Szczucka's historical novels include ''Beatum scelus'' (1924), ''Złota wolność'' (Golden Liberty, 1928), ''Legnickie pole'' (''The Field of Legnica'', 1930), ''Trembowla'' (1939), ''Suknia Dejaniry'' (''The Gift of Nessus'', 1939). Best known are ''Krzyżowcy'' (''Angels in The Dust'', 1935), ''Król trędowaty'' (''The Leper King'', 1936), and ''Bez oręża'' (''Blessed are The Meek'', 1937) dealing with the
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...
and later ''
Francis of Assisi'', translated into several languages. She also wrote ''Z miłości'' (''From Love'', 1926) and ''Szaleńcy boży'' (''God's Madmen'', 1929), on religious themes.
World War II
Press activities
During the German occupation of Poland, she worked in the underground press: from 1939 to 1941, she co-edited the underground newspaper ''Polska żyje'' (''Poland Lives''). In 1941, she co-founded the Catholic organization ''Front Odrodzenia Polski'' (''Front for the Rebirth of Poland''), and edited its newspaper, ''Prawda'' (''The Truth'').
In the underground, she used the code name ''Weronika''.
"Protest!"
In the summer of 1942, when the liquidation of the
Warsaw Ghetto began, Kossak-Szczucka published a leaflet entitled "Protest," of which 5,000 copies were printed. In the leaflet, she described in graphic terms the conditions in the Ghetto, and the horrific circumstances of the deportations then taking place. "All will perish ... Poor and rich, old, women, men, youngsters, infants, Catholics dying with the name of Jesus and Mary together with Jews. Their only guilt is that they were born into the Jewish nation condemned to extermination by Hitler."
The world, Kossak-Szczucka wrote, was silent in the face of this atrocity. "England is silent, so is America, even the influential international Jewry, so sensitive in its reaction to any transgression against its people, is silent. Poland is silent... Dying Jews are surrounded only by a host of
Pilates washing their hands in innocence." Those who are silent in the face of murder, she wrote, become accomplices to the crime. Kossak-Szczucka saw this largely as an issue of religious ethics. "Our feelings toward Jews have not changed," she wrote. "We do not stop thinking of them as political, economic and ideological enemies of Poland." But, she wrote, this does not relieve Polish Catholics of their duty to oppose the crimes being committed in their country.
She co-founded the
Provisional Committee to Aid Jews
The Provisional Committee to Aid Jews ( pl, Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom) was founded on September 27, 1942, by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz. The founding body consisted of Polish democratic Catholic activists associate ...
(''Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom''), which later turned into the council to Aid Jews (''Rada Pomocy Żydom''), codenamed
Żegota, an underground organization whose sole purpose was to save Jews in Poland from Nazi extermination. In 1985, she was posthumously named one of the
Righteous Among the Nations by
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
.
Regarding Kossak-Szczucka's "Protest",
Robert D. Cherry
Robert D. Cherry (born 1944) is an American academic who is professor emeritus at Brooklyn College, with a Ph.D. in Economics from Kansas State University received in 1968. Before retiring, he was Broeklundian Professor at Brooklyn College.
A ...
and
Annamaria Orla-Bukowska
Annamaria Orla-Bukowska is a social anthropologist at the Institute of Sociology of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków; and the Professor/Lecturer at the Center for Social Studies / Graduate School for Social Research of the Polish Academy ...
wrote in the introduction to ''Rethinking Poles and Jews'': "Without at all whitewashing her antisemitism in the document, she vehemently called for active intercession on behalf of the Jews - precisely in the name of Polish Roman Catholicism and Polish patriotism. The deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto precipitated her cofounding of
Żegota that same year - an
Armia Krajowa
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) e ...
(AK, Home Army) unit whose sole purpose was to save Jews."
Arrest
On September 27, 1943 Kossak-Szczucka was arrested in Warsaw by a German street patrol. The Germans, not realising who she was, sent her first to the prison at
Pawiak
Pawiak () was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Congress Poland.
During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia.
During the World War II German occupation o ...
and then to
Auschwitz II-Birkenau
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It c ...
concentration camp. When her true identity became known in April 1944, she was sent back to
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
for interrogation and sentenced to death. She was released in July 1944 through the efforts of the Polish underground and participated in the
Warsaw Uprising.
Post-war
At the end of World War II, a communist regime began to establish itself in Poland. In June 1945, Kossak was called in by
Jakub Berman
Jakub Berman (23 December 1901 – 10 April 1984) was a Polish communist politician. Was born in Jewish family, son of Iser and Guta. An activist during the Second Polish Republic, in post-war communist Poland he was a member of the Politburo of ...
, the new Polish Minister of the Interior, who was Jewish. He strongly advised her to leave the country immediately for her own protection, knowing what his government would do to political enemies, and also knowing from his brother,
Adolf Berman
Adolf Avraham Berman (, 17 October 1906 – 3 February 1978) was a Polish-Israeli activist and communist politician.
Biography
Born in Warsaw in the Russian Empire (today in Poland), the younger brother of Jakub Berman. Berman attended the Univ ...
, what Kossak had done to save Jewish lives.
[''La maison brulée'' (''The burned house''). A sixteen-year-old voluntary helper during the Warsaw insurrection. Anna Szatkowska, Les Éditions Noir sur Blanc, CH-1007 Lausanne, 2005 (in French)] Kossak escaped to the West, but returned to Poland in 1957.
Kossak-Szczucka published ''Z Otchłani'' (''From the Abyss'', 1946), based on her experiences of Auschwitz. ''Dziedzictwo'' (''Heritage''. 1956–67) is about the Kossak family. ''Przymierze'' (''The Covenant'', 1951) tells the story of Abraham. Kossak-Szczucka also wrote books for children and teenagers, including ''Bursztyn'' (1936) and ''Gród nad jeziorem'' (''Settlement by the Lake'', 1938).
In 1964 she was one of the signatories of the so-called
Letter of 34 to Prime Minister
Józef Cyrankiewicz regarding freedom of culture.
In 1982 the
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
Institute in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
recognised Zofia Kossak as a
Righteous Among Nations. In 2009, the
National Bank of Poland issued a coin posthumously commemorating the work of Kossak,
Irena Sendler and
Matylda Getter in helping Jews (see
Żegota). In 2018 Zofia Kossak was awarded the highest Polish order, the
Order of the White Eagle.
Zofia's daughter,
Anna Szatkowska (15 March 1928, Górki Wielkie – 27 February 2015), wrote a book about her experience during the Warsaw Uprising.
[
]
Works
She was the author of many works, a number of which have been translated into English.
Selected works:
* ''Beatum scelus''
* ''Beatyfikacja Skargi''
* '' Bez oręża'' (1937) (English title: ''Blessed are The Meek'', 1944)
* '' Błogosławiona wina'' (1953)
* ''Błogosławiony Jan Sarkander ze Skoczowa''
* ''Bursztyny''
* ''Chrześcijańskie posłannictwo Polski''
* ''Oblicze Matki'' (''Das Antlitz der Mutter'', 1948)
* ''Dziedzictwo''
* ''Dzień dzisiejszy'' (1931)
* ''Gród nad jeziorem''
* ''Kielich krwi - obrazek sceniczny w dwóch aktach''
* ''Kłopoty Kacperka góreckiego skrzata'' (1924) (English title: ''The Troubles of a Gnome'', 1928)
* ''Król trędowaty'' (1937) (English title: ''The Leper King'')
* ''Krzyżowcy'' (1935) (English title: ''Angels in the Dust'')
* ''Ku swoim'' (1932)
* ''Legnickie pole'' (1931)
* ''Na drodze''
* ''Na Śląsku''
* ''Nieznany kraj'' (1932)
* ''Ognisty wóz''
* ''Pątniczym szlakiem. Wrażenia z pielgrzymki'' (1933)
* ''Pod lipą''
* '' Pożoga'' (1922) (English title: ''The Blaze'', 1927)
* ''Prometeusz i garncarz''
* ''Przymierze'' (1952) (English title: 'The Covenant'', 1951)
* ''Purpurowy szlak''
* ''Puszkarz Orbano''
* ''Rewindykacja polskości na Kresach''
* ''Rok polski: obyczaj i wiara''
* ''S.O.S. ... !''
* ''Skarb Śląski'' (1937)
* ''Suknia Dejaniry'' (English title: ''The Gift of Nessus'')
* ''Szaleńcy Boży'' (1929)
* ''Szukajcie przyjaciół'' (1933)
* ''Topsy i Lupus'' (1931)
* ''Trembowla''
* ''Troja północy'' with Zygmunt Szatkowski historic novel about Polabian Slavs
Polabian Slavs ( dsb, Połobske słowjany, pl, Słowianie połabscy, cz, Polabští slované) is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic ( West Slavic) tribes who lived scattered along the Elbe river in what is today eastern Ger ...
* ''W Polsce Podziemnej: wybrane pisma dotyczące lat 1939 - 1944''
* ''Warna''
* ''Wielcy i mali'' (1927)
* ''Wspomnienia z Kornwalii 1947-1957'' (2007)
* ''Z dziejów Śląska''
* ''Z miłości'' (1925)
* ''Z otchłani'' (1946)
* ''Złota wolność'' (1928)
See also
* Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz
Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz (15 December 1886–1968), code name “Alinka”” or “Alicja”, was a leading figure in Warsaw’s underground resistance movement throughout the years of German occupation during World War II in Poland, co-fou ...
* Polish culture during World War II
* Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska
Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, ''née'' Kossak (24 November 1891 – 9 July 1945), was a prolific Polish poet known as the ''Polish Sappho'' and "queen of lyrical poetry" during Poland's interwar period.
* Magdalena Samozwaniec
Magdalena Samozwaniec née Kossak ( Krakow, 26 July 1894 – 20 October 1972, Warsaw) was a Polish writer. The Kossak family is known for many artists including her father Wojciech Kossak, her brother Jerzy and sister Maria
Maria may refer to:
...
Notes
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
Foundation of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka
– her activity to save Jews' lives during the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, at Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...
website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kossak-Szczucka, Zofia
1889 births
1968 deaths
People from Puławy County
People from Lublin Governorate
Polish historical novelists
Polish resistance members of World War II
Polish Roman Catholics
Female resistance members of World War II
Roman Catholic writers
Catholic Righteous Among the Nations
Writers of historical fiction set in the Middle Ages
Polish Righteous Among the Nations
Warsaw Uprising insurgents
Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature
Auschwitz concentration camp survivors
Warsaw Ghetto inmates
Polish women novelists
20th-century Polish novelists
20th-century Polish women writers
Women historical novelists
Polish women in World War II resistance
Żegota members
Female anti-fascists