Zofia Baniecka (12 May 1917 in

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 officia ...

– 1993) was a Polish member of the Resistance during

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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In addition to relaying guns and other materials to resistance fighters, Baniecka and her mother sheltered over 50 Jews in their home between 1941 and 1944.Garry Buff, The International

Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg (4 August 1912 – disappeared 17 January 1945)He is presumed to have died in 1947, although the circumstances of his death are not clear and this date has been disputed. Some reports claim he was alive years later. 31 J ...

Foundation
Zofia Baniecka, Poland
Edited by Stephanie Surach Later, Baniecka was an activist with the Intervention

Bureau Bureau ( ) may refer to: Agencies and organizations * Government agency *Public administration * News bureau, an office for gathering or distributing news, generally for a given geographical location * Bureau (European Parliament), the administra ...

of the Polish

Workers' Defence Committee The Workers' Defense Committee ( pl, Komitet Obrony Robotników , KOR) was a Polish civil society group that was established to give aid to prisoners and their families after the June 1976 protests and ensuing government crackdown. KOR was an exam ...

( pl, Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR) in 1977. Komitet Obrony Robotnikow, KOR
Kalendarium 1977.
Narodowe Centrum Kultury. She and her husband were active participants in the Solidarity movement in the 1980s, distributing

underground press The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rec ...

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...

An interview with Zofia Baniecka
/ref> Narodowe Centrum Kultury, Slownik
"Niezalezni dla kultury 1976-1989".
/ref> In her professional capacity, Baniecka was a long-time member of the Warsaw chapter of the Association of Polish Artists and Designers (''ZPAP''). Slownik Biograficzny
Artysci plastycy okregu warszawskiego ZPAP 1945-1970.
/ref>

Life

Born fifteen years after her parents' wedding, Zofia Baniecka was the only child of a sculptor father and a teacher mother from

. Her parents were not religious but she went to a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

school. She then studied at the

Warsaw University The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

, before the

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subs ...

. Zofia had many

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish friends from assimilated homes just like her own intellectually inclined parents. In late 1940 the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

occupiers ordered the family to relocate when their home fell within the boundaries of the newly established

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

. All three family members began to work for the Polish underground. In Zofia's case, she became affiliated with the

Bataliony Chłopskie Bataliony Chłopskie (BCh, Polish ''Peasants' Battalions'') was a Polish World War II resistance movement, guerrilla and partisan organisation. The organisation was created in mid-1940 by the agrarian political party People's Party and by 19 ...

. Zofia's inconspicuous grey-haired mother was transporting weapons in her shopping bag for the Resistance, while Zofia's father smuggled food and books to friends in the Ghetto. Thanks to help from their underground contacts, the family soon moved to a large apartment with four rooms and a kitchen — near the walls of the ghetto — and began taking in Jewish refugees. The apartment was divided by curtains with a different Jewish family behind each one. Nobody was ever refused: friends, strangers, acquaintances. Zofia got involved with the underground press and also, helped the Jewish Committee find hiding places for the children. As a courier, she distributed underground newspapers and relayed orders around the General Government.Rochelle L. Millen, Jack Mann, Timothy Bennett,
''New Perspectives on the Holocaust''
page 256, NYU Press 1996 Even though in 1941 Zofia's father was killed in a Soviet air-strike on Warsaw — from winter of 1941 till August 1944 (when the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising ( pl, powstanie warszawskie; german: Warschauer Aufstand) was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led ...

started) — the two women managed to rescue at least fifty (50) Jews in their home, including a family of ten, escaping the Ghetto firestorm in April 1943 following the failed

Ghetto Uprising The ghetto uprisings during World War II were a series of armed revolts against the regime of Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1943 in the newly established Jewish ghettos across Nazi-occupied Europe. Following the German and Soviet invasion of Po ...

. When their house was full, the Banieckis helped Jews find other places to hide. After the Soviet takeover of Poland at the end of

, Zofia was arrested by the Communist authorities as a member of Resistance but she was ultimately released. She got married. Years later, with her husband, Baniecka got involved with the anti-communist

Komitet Obrony Robotników The Workers' Defense Committee ( pl, Komitet Obrony Robotników , KOR) was a Polish civil society group that was established to give aid to prisoners and their families after the June 1976 protests and ensuing government crackdown. KOR was an examp ...

(KOR), undeterred by the threat of repressions. Ultimately, she also became an active participant in the Polish Solidarity movement of the 1980s.

Remembrance

She was recognized as a

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

, posthumously, in 2016.

Footnotes

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Further references

* Gay Block, and Malka Drucker, ''Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust''. Holmes & Meier, New York, 1992, pp. 163–4. Content available at

USHMM The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust his ...

website's time sensitiv
page #1and #2
* Michael Harrington
Find A Grave: Zofia Baniecka
* Rochelle L. Millen, Jack Mann, Timothy Bennett
''New Perspectives on the Holocaust''
Publisher NYU Press 1996, {{DEFAULTSORT:Baniecka, Zofia 1917 births 1993 deaths Polish Righteous Among the Nations Polish women in World War II resistance Politicians from Warsaw University of Warsaw alumni 20th-century Polish women artists Polish dissidents Solidarity (Polish trade union) activists Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw Recipients of the Cross of Merit with Swords (Poland) Recipients of the Order of Polonia Restituta Burials at Powązki Cemetery Members of the Workers' Defence Committee

Life

Remembrance

See also

Footnotes

Further references