Ewa Cichy

"I was involved in many charity organizations in Praga but I never took money for anything. My father used to say – Charity and social work should never be salaried. You are a social worker or you are not. And also he said – Poland is like a sun and there are enough sunbeams for everyone. I remember him waiting every single night until midnight when the radio played the national anthem. He was always very moved".

"My mum taught secret lessons in the school situated on the corner of Okopowa and Wolska streets. It seemed to be a good and easy place for kids to get together. A headmaster of the school, the one on Praga, was Mrs Rzeszotarska. During the occupation Mrs Rzeszotarska founded an ‘Undergarments school’ because it was a type of school that Germans allowed. My daughter attended to that school and therefore she can sew really well. Girls officially had arts and craft workshop so they always kept materials on their tables but in the same time the teacher, Mrs Wadowa, was giving them secret lessons"

"My husband worked in a secret service. His job was to inspect some German agencies, collect information, code them and send. He applied the machine which was invented and built by himself. Codes he was using turned the message into a few dots. I guess a small coded note was much easier to smuggle across the border so the couriers did it successfully. One of the couriers was my husband’s brother Stanislaw (I’ve got his picture here if you to have a look). One day he was denounced by Slovak, some Slovakian shepherd. Stanislaw was then arrested and imprisoned in Pawiak. And finally he died in Pawiak, he was executed in the ghetto ruins. Before he died he had helped many people in Pawiak, he looked after wounded prisoners in Pawiak, and he helped people tortured by Gestapo. There is a book telling about his life and activity in Pawiak. We’ve got this book, here, in our home archive".

"After we moved here, to Wileńska Street, one day NKVD invaded to our house (NKVD was a kind of soviet organization whose job was to protect the Soviet army). One day all of sudden they arrived and burst into my house and they took my husband away, claiming he was an AK (Armia Krajowa-Home Army) member. And they took him somewhere. They took him to the place where W-Z road is today, to Marki. I said to my son – ‘Follow them and find out where father will be taken’. So my son ran after the car and he found out that his father was arrested. In a building where my husband was placed, he met his friends from AK but none of them admitted they knew each other’s. He had a hearing but he never pleaded guilty, he didn’t say he was an AK member. He just told them – ‘You keep me in this place while my students who are just kids stay without a teacher!’ He was a teacher indeed. Zofia Szyszko, a wife of the professor Bogusz stood up for him as well (The professor was a Jew, and Mrs Zofia Szyszko was also a Jewess. He came back to Poland from Russia and I remember him often recollecting his mother’s words. His mother used to say ‘it is embarrassing to be a bourgeo but nonetheless it is also so ‘haraszo’ [nice]’). Zofia Szyszko stood up for him and they let him go. They released him and he came back home! I can’t remember this moment when I saw him. I just remember I threw my arms around him and I cried. I cried because my brother died in war".