The Real Price of Helping Jews under German Terror. A Few Family Histories from the Environs of Cracow (2022)
For more than two years, the Janczarski family hid the Kołatacz family, a Jewish family they had previously known only by sight. The Grzybowski family also participated in helping the Kołatacz family. The text attempts to reconstruct the reality of everyday life in a situation of illegally hiding people for such a long time. It presents a description of the circumstances in which the decision to provide help violated the occupation law. It brings closer the methods of securing oneself from the German occupation services and tracking dogs, as well as the principles of conspiracy. The article presents all the logistics involved in hiding people (hiding places, escape routes, food production, ways of getting food, and excrement disposal). Furthermore, it characterises the behaviour of those hiding and those giving shelter. Finally, it shows the situation of those in hiding and those giving shelter after the occupation of Poland by the Red Army and under the communist regime.
Keywords: historia