Stanisław Stanclik, who worked in one of the printing houses in Krakow, supplied her with the necessary textbooks and books from the General Government. He carried them across the border of the General Government and left them with the railway guard in Inwałd. Helena Krywult picked them up there. Schools officially resumed in September 1943, when they were organized for Polish children on the outskirts of the village in Jan Pyka’s house. Teaching sessions took place until January 8, 19458.
However, most of her time and effort during the occupation were spent organizing help for prisoners of KL Auschwitz working in Bór-Brzeszcze. The first prisoners arrived there in January 1941 and worked, among others, on the construction of a flood embankment along the Vistula River. Others widened and extended drainage ditches running from the meadows and pastures located in Bór towards the Vistula, and also cleaned ponds and bred fish, horses, cows and pigs. With time, with the planned expansion of the concentration camp in the hamlet of Brzeszcze Zieleniec, prisoners in extremely difficult conditions subjected to slave labour were forced to dismantle houses and barns of displaced Poles. The material obtained in this way was used to build the camp in Birkenau. The hungry and destitute received help, among others, from those living in Brzeszcze at 131 Nazielce Street - Anna and Józef Moroń. Their house was located near the emerging camp in Birkenau and was not subject to displacement9. Situated away from other houses and in the vicinity of the camp that was to be built, it allowed its residents to be in contact with working prisoners, especially since the latter stored their work tools in their barn.
Anna Moroń was related through the Ślebarski family to Helena Kraus living in Komorowice. When at the beginning of 1941 working prisoners appeared near her home, she saw their physical exhaustion and hunger, and started organizing aid among her closest acquaintances, friends and family. The increasing number of prisoners appearing near her home, and the resulting growing need for support, required an increasing number of insiders and trusted donors. And so, through family contacts, the Ślebarski family, who were related to her, and Helena Kraus learned about her extraordinary aid activities and resulting needs. Being friends with Matylda Linert and being aware of her activities in the ranks of FMT, she passed on to her information about the urgent need to provide help to KL Auschwitz prisoners working outside the camp.
Years later she wrote: “One day my mother’s distant cousin Anna Moroń, whose house bordered the camp in Oświęcim-Brzezinka, came to visit (the camp grounds were about 200 m from her house). Mrs. Moroń said that she could feed prisoners who went to work outside the camp. This was possible thanks to the location of her house close to the camp and away from other houses. She said that by bribing the prison guards, prisoners came to her and she could give them tea, coffee, bread, sometimes soup, whatever she had. This was possible thanks to the general campaign of feeding prisoners in Oświęcim and surrounding villages. Mrs. Moroń came and asked if we could help with something and provide food sometimes. Of course, I went to Matylda and we started organizing help.”10.
In the spring of 1941, they both established contact with Józef and Anna Moroń. They arrived in Brzeszcze at a time when they had been providing multilateral aid to prisoners working in their area for some time. In their accounts from January 2, 1964, the Moroń family said this about the help provided: “Hungry prisoners came to my apartment several times a day from the forest, embankments and roads. We fed everyone we came into contact with. We illegally sent letters to families, collected letters and delivered them to prisoners, facilitated meetings in my house and in Brzeszcze.”11 In turn, elsewhere, speaking about residents of Brzeszcze and further surroundings who helped them, they added: “They provided us with civilian clothes in Bielsko, Komorowice and Janowice. We picked them up in person. We took food and food stamps with the clothes. Supplies were brought by Kubika from Janowice, Maria Kamińska with her daughter Władysława from Komorowice, a teacher from Komorowice, I don’t remember her name, she married a local organist, Kulkowa, Sękowa and Siutowa from Brzeszcze, Stanisława Morończyk and Helena Kraus from Komorowice. Those mentioned, risking their lives, rushed to help the prisoners until the end of the camp’s existence”12.
Obtaining additional food during the Nazi occupation was not easy. In Komorowice, both women received additional food stamps from Krystyna Błotko, who worked at Ernährungsamt (Nutrution Office). These were stamps glued to larger stamps. Peeled off and dried, they most often enabled the purchase of bread, groats, sugar, bacon and lard. Małgorzata Herman, whose married name was Kucharska, also helped in obtaining additional food. Her father was Austrian, her mother Polish, who raised her three children as devout Poles. The Hermans owned a bakery and a shop. Małgorzata worked there, and sometimes she gave Helena Kraus food without stamps, which stores had to settle at the office. Additionally, appropriate manipulation meant that the saleswoman submitted significantly fewer stamps to the office than she provided in the written settlement. Thanks to this, she could donate the resulting surplus to aid organizers. “She gave us the surplus, which we took together with the money to Mrs. Moroń, and she herself bought food for the prisoners. This manipulation with the stamps was possible because, as Małgorzata claimed, the Germans also often bought supplies without stamps, and besides, they were messy and often did not settle them.”13
9 Recollections of Józef Moroń, born on November 2, 1900 in Bór and of Anna Moroń, née Saduś, of January 2, 1964 in Nazieleńce, p. 3. APMA-B. Collection of Testimonies, vol. 69, p. 34 (see “Ludzie dobrej woli. Księga pamięci mieszkańców Ziemi Oświęcimskiej niosących pomoc więźniom KL Auschwitz pod redakcją Henryka Świebockiego” (“People of Good Will. Book of remembrance of the residents of the Oświęcim region helping prisoners of KL Auschwitz edited by Henryk Świebocki”). Oświęcim 2005, pp. 511-512.)
Helena Kraus w latach okupacji hitlerowskiej. Archiwum Andrzeja Ślebarskiego.