Jan Kostanski

Title: Janek - a gentile in the Warsaw Ghetto
Author: Jan Kostanski
Publisher: Self Published
Place of publication: Melbourne
Year of Publication: 1998
Location of Book: Rare Books Collection, Sir Louis Matheson Library, Monash University Clayton Campus
Cities/town/camps: Poland:Warsaw

Janek: A Gentile in the Warsaw Ghetto tells the story of a young Catholic boy’s efforts to protect Jews during the years of German occupation. Pages 11-17 give a brief description of Janek’s family and the beginning of the German occupation. The narrative then shifts from pages 18-62 which describe Janek’s efforts in smuggling himself, and supplies, into the Warsaw ghetto. The story takes a turn from pages 63-104 when Janek’s mother Wladyslawa (known as Mrs Wladzia) offers to hide three members of the Wierzbicki family. This section also details the harrowing escape from the ghetto. Pages 116-134 outline the story of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943 from two perspectives – that of Janek and David (Dudek) Landau, one of the Jewish ghetto resistance fighters. The next section of the book (pages 135-178) details the hazards of concealing the Wierzbicki family and the incredible survival story of twelve year old Bolek Kaplan. The final section of the book (pages 179-226) deals with the 1944 Polish uprising and Janek’s survival with five others in an underground bunker until the liberation of Warsaw by the Russian Army. It is worth noting that the book features an additional 24 pages of historical photographs and documents. Originally written in Polish, Jan Kostanski’s memoirs were translated into English and published privately in Melbourne in 1998.

Janek was born in the old city of Warsaw in 1925. He had two sisters, Jadzia and Danuta. In 1940 the Jews of Warsaw, including close friends and neighbours Ajzyk and his two children Nathan and Nacha Wierzbicki, were confined to the ghetto. As food was scarce for the ghetto population, Janek began work as a smuggler. Through daring and ingenuity, and where needed, bribes, Janek was part of a network of smugglers who managed to sneak vital supplies into the ghetto. These early chapters provide a fascinating insight into the planning, precautions and risks of the ghetto smugglers. On a number of occasions Janek was badly beaten or narrowly escaped with his life.

The story takes another turn from chapter 9, when deportations from the ghetto were starting. It was at this point that Janek and his mother Wladyslawa (known as Mrs Wladzia) managed to smuggle Ajzyk, Nacha and Nathan out of the ghetto, as well as Janek’s Jewish friend from school Walter Cykiert. Eventually an appropriate flat was found where they were not known, making it harder to be betrayed, and a hiding room was organized behind a wardrobe where the Jewish family and Walter Cykiert were hidden. Concealing Jews was an extremely dangerous venture and Mrs Wladzia and her family were constantly at risk of betrayal by blackmailers and Nazi sympathisers. Janek continued to visit and assist the Jews remaining in the ghetto and had great respect for those who had taken up arms to resist deportation.

Meanwhile, Janek’s 12-year-old sister, Jadzia, was rounded up in the streets of Warsaw by the Nazis, who ripped up her Aryan papers and put her on a train to Majdanek concentration camp, where she endured a harrowing six weeks. Her mother, Wladyslawa, managed to win her freedom by bribing a local woman who had a relationship with a Nazi SS Officer in Warsaw. Wladyslawa paid for her daughter’s freedom with a diamond ring, a mink coat and US $100 which in total was a fortune at that time. Displaying her own strength of character, Jadzia never revealed the family's secret activities.

When it finally began in 1944, Janek participated in the unsuccessful Polish uprising. After their flat was destroyed, Janek and the Jews he was protecting were forced to live in a cellar, which was heavily camouflaged to protect them. While all of Janek’s Catholic family left Warsaw when the Germans expelled the city’s population, Janek remained hiding out in bunkers in the rubble with the Wierzbicki family, and his Jewish school friend Walter Cykiert as he had sworn he would stay with them and protect them. Those hiding in bunkers faced the constant danger of German grenades or bullets, as well as the struggle to find adequate food and water. The residents of the bunker slept during the day and went out at night, using only the light of burning buildings, to find supplies. After discovering weapons and making home-made grenades, Janek and his fellow bunker dwellers were able to defend themselves against small German forces. Despite the difficult and cramped conditions Janek always found a way to find shelter for those in need.

Janek: A Gentile in the Warsaw Ghetto is a captivating and enlightening account of heroism and survival in wartime Warsaw. Events are recalled with clarity and detail, drawing the reader into the rubble strewn streets, bunkers and treacherous alleyways of the occupied Polish capital. The book provides the fascinating perspective of a Catholic teenager who risked everything to rescue Jews. After the war, his mother married Ayzyk Wierzbicki and Janek married Nacha Wierzbicki. Everyone had survived and Janek and his family moved to Melbourne in 1958, as did his two sisters, his mother and Ayzyk and their families.

In 1984, Wladyslawa Wierzbicki (nee Kostanska) and Jan Kostanski received medals as Righteous Among the Nations.