From Judaism to Catholicism and Back Again

On Friday morning, March 16, 2018, our team traveled to Kraków to visit the Jewish Community Centre (JCC) of Kraków. It was there that we met Olga, who told us a little about herself and her Jewish ancestry. She also gave us information about the JCC itself, which is a Jewish cultural and educational centre that opened in 2008 as the result of an initiative by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The JCC is the de facto Jewish visitors center for Kraków, Poland and provides social, educational, and community oriented services to the Jewish community of Kraków. After hearing from Olga, we heard from a Holocaust survivor named Zofia Radzikowska.

"I was less than four years old when the war broke out. My father had to move all the furs he was working on to the apartment. Because one of the first German decrees in Krakow forbade Jews from running shops and businesses. They had to close them." (Radzikowska, Krakow, 2018)

Although she herself had not been confined to a concentration camp, Zofia Radzikowska lost her father to Auschwitz. She and her mother were forced to move to a new village after being blackmailed twice. Concerning the blackmail, Zofia had this to say:

“Worst moment of my life - we were blackmailed when someone came to my apartment. My mom was terrified. We gave him money, clothes, and whatever else he wanted. After he left, we escaped.”

It was while in hiding that Zofia was baptized as a Catholic to cover up her Jewish roots. After the war ended she eventually converted back to Judaism and went on to further her education, receiving her Ph.D. in law from the Jagiellonian University and working as a professor. Zofia's story concluded with uplifting words, “so I am here now, safe, happy and lucky.”

Later that Friday evening, our team was in attendance for Shabbat dinner at the JCC and Zofia was present for the occasion. As of today, Zofia is still an active member of the JCC in Kraków.

While our team has had the honor of hearing the personal stories of a few survivors of the Holocaust, this was the first in which the survivor converted to Catholicism in order to survive the atrocities being committed by the Nazi.

Zofia's life story reminded us of another story of survival, one we had encountered in the book, The Holocaust Kingdom by Alexander Donat. In The Holocaust Kingdom, Donat and his wife had decided to smuggle their son Wlodek out of the ghetto and sent him to the home of Stefan and Maria Magenheim, friends of the family. Before doing so, however, Wlodek’s parents had to prepare him for life on the Aryan side where he could no longer be Jewish:

“Lena had, in the interim, been teaching Wlodek the Catholic prayers. ‘Now remember’, she told him, ‘you have never lived in the Ghetto and you must never use the word Ghetto. You’re not a Jew. You’re a Polish Catholic...We were bitterly aware of the tragic spectacle of a mother teaching her only child to disavow his parents, his people, his former life…” (Donat, 114-115).

A few weeks after Wlodek’s arrival at the Magenheim home, they were betrayed by one of their neighbors. With the help of Magdalena Rusinek, a seventeen-year-old member of the Polish Underground who collected, cared for and escorted Jewish children to their places of refuge with Polish families or in convents, Wlodek was brought to an orphanage near Otwock, Poland, where he remained for two years.

During that period, Maria would come to the orphanage whenever she could, bringing Wlodek cakes and other delicacies. Although Wlodek was safe by being away from his parents and denouncing his Jewish heritage, during his time away he was brainwashed by the nuns at the orphanage.

In his own words, Wlodek explains in The Holocaust Kingdom that,

“Miss Krysia told me that Jews were very bad. They drank the blood of Catholics on their holidays. They kill a young boy or girl, suck out their blood and put it in jars…she said if Auntie Maria tried to take me back to my Mommy, I should run away to the woods. I prayed that my parents would not come back for me. I believed in Jesus very much.” (Donat, 302).

To think that a Catholic nun would say these things to a child is unimaginable but it occurred and wasn’t uncommon. Wlodek 's parents both survived the Shoah and were reunited with their son and although the reunion was rocky at first, with Wlodek’s mind full of anti-Semitic thoughts, he eventually returned to the religion of his family. 

Although Wlodek and Zofia Radzikowska had different stories, both accounts had one thing in common, which is the title of this blog: from Judaism to Catholicism and back again. This is what it took to survive the horrors of the Holocaust but this approach did not always work. Fortunately for Wlodek and Zofia, however, this approach did work and we were lucky enough to be able to hear their stories.

One of our goals here at Hidden History is to commemorate, document, research and educate about the Holocaust. Not only must we remember the six million Jews murdered by the German Nazis & their collaborators, the destroyed Jewish communities, and the ghetto and resistance fighters, but also honor the Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the Holocaust.

Most importantly, we must continue to educate future generations. Young people today are the future leaders of the world tomorrow – so it is vital that we ensure these atrocities of the Holocaust are not repeated. Especially given the diminishing numbers of survivors able to “tell their story” and the rising numbers of Holocaust deniers and those who simply have a lack of Holocaust knowledge.