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12.04.2024

"Anna and Sara" – the story of Anna Bogdanowicz and Sara Diller

IPN's educational series of short films entitled "Not Only the Ulmas" presents well-researched examples of Poles who saved Jews under German occupation during World War II. Each episode is focusing on a separate person, and most often a family or several families, whose members risked, and most often lost, their lives trying to protect their Jewish fellow citizens. The series was created by the IPN Spokesperson's Office in cooperation with researchers at the IPN’s Historical Research Office and IPN's Office of International Relations

We are presenting another episode of the series "Not just the Ulmas". The film "Anna and Sara" depicts a story of a heroic teacher Anna Bogdanowicz from Jasło. She was imprisoned in Auschwitz for helping her Jewish friend, who survived the war.

Anna Bogdanowicz and Sara Diller were both graduated from the Private Teaching Seminar in Jasło. Before the outbreak of the World War II they both worked as teachers. When the German occupation begun in September 1939, Sara Diller was tutoring Anna’s elder son in Kielce. When the Polish Jewry was forced to move to the ghettos, Anna and Sara couldn not meet anymore. Anna’s husband collaborated with the Germans and worked as the Mayor of Kielce. Therefore Anna couldn not bring Sara into their home, but she organized an escape from the ghetto for her and arranged Anna a place for hiding at the Gościej family. Than Sara moved to another family of a railroad man and finally at Rojek’s forester's lodge. Anna, her husband and son Antoni, were arrested on 6 November 1942. She was accused of helping to organize Sara’s escape from the ghetto. Since Anna took all the blame on herself, her husband and son were released. Than she was transported to Auschwitz, where she died on 14 June 1943. However, Anna had managed to warn Sara, who quickly left the forester's lodge, and then departed to Warsaw via Cracow. From there, under a false name, she was deported to Austria for labor. Sara Diller survived the war and left for Israel thanks to the heroic attitude of her Polish friend Anna Bogdanowicz.

***

The late former Israeli Ambassador to Poland Szewach Weiss, who was also one of the Holocaust survivors recalled:

At first, we hid at the Góral family home and then with the Potężny family. These were our Polish neighbours in Borysław. Then, we moved to a hideout, a double wall that my father well prepared in our home. We were there for seven-eight months. We asked Ms. Lasotowa (a Ukrainian, friend of my mother) to move into our home, as we would not be able to survive without her help. Then, the Germans learned that such double walls hide Jews. We had to move to another location, the cellar of a neighbouring house. This was a hideout for children that my grandfather Icek built before the war. We lived in the cellar for 21 months. The Górals and Potężnys brought us food. Ms. Lasotowa ran a store and supplied us with food, cigarettes and fuel for the field stove. My entire family was saved. None of this would have been possible if not for the righteous, the Potęžny and Góral families as well as Ms. Lasotowa and Mr. Roman Szezepaniuk. Wonderful and dear people. These are my heroes: forever in my heart.

 

 

 

Watch previous episodes of the series "Not only about the Ulma's".


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