Piaseczno, 4 February 2005
Committee for the Commemoration of Poles who Saved Jews
The Central Archives of Modern Records
Hankiewicza Street 1
02-103 Warsaw
My time on this earth is coming to an end. I am almost 89 years old. I wish to describe here how I fought with the occupier to defend the Jews.
I was brought up in a Polish-Jewish district in Warsaw, at Wronia Street 38. My family was friends with Jewish families, they lived in the apartments which we were renting out in our estate. My parents had a shop at the corner of Łucka and Wronia Streets. After the war broke out, I took over the shop and sold groceries with the permission of the Germans. One wall of the basement underneath the shop was adjacent to a sewer leading through Łucka Street to Żelazna Street and Wronia Street, then to Grzybowska Street, and further on to Leszno Street.
After the Ghetto Uprising broke out, my colleagues and I broke through the wall of the sewer. The passage made it possible to get through the sewer underneath Łucka and Żelazna Streets to Leszno Street. The breach was made on the left side of the sewer and the Aryan side was joined with the ghetto by a tunnel. This work was carried out by five men who then used the passage to deliver food to the Jews on specially made carts.
The German sentries were located at the corner of Żelazna and Leszno Streets. This section was very dangerous. The Germans threw grenades into the tunnels and snooped around the sewers. Those who got caught were to be executed together with their whole families.
Communication with the ghetto was maintained via telephone.
After the Ghetto Uprising broke out, a group of Jews used the underground passage. Binder from Płock was among them. They walked out of the shop without raising any suspicions. They were then hidden and escorted to a hotel near Bielańska Street. I don’t know what happened after.
A Jew named Adam Landau was a liaison between the Aryan side and the ghetto. His name on the Aryan side was Laskowski. Before the war he lived with his family at Łucka Street 2.
Adam’s wife and son Ryszard lived in the ghetto. She died there during the uprising. We managed to get Ryszard out of there through the tunnel and settled him with my family in Piaseczno. He was raised with my children. He later departed for the USA.
I met Adam Landau during the Warsaw Uprising, he had a Home Army officer’s badge.
A Jewish woman, Helena Poper, and her daughter Kamila were hiding in my summer house in Piaseczno for several months during the occupation.
After the war Helena lived in Paris and exchanged letters with my wife. My wife is no longer alive, and Helena Poper – residing in Paris [...] – stopped writing.
Jan Maślankiewicz
[...]