The process of delivering aid itself was not easy and carried the risk of arrest. Matylda, by bribing guards and kapos, from January 1941 to November 1943, delivered food, medicines, injections, warm underwear and sometimes writing utensils every week. In the winter, she also delivered socks, earmuffs, warm shirts and sweaters she got from the residents of Komorowice. Helena Kraus, a relative of the Moroń family, took part in these activities and “delivered food stamps, food, medicines and clothes for prisoners”14. Her circle of friends also included a teacher Stanisława Morończyk who lived in Brzeszcze, at 3 Kosynierów Street15. The latter, when the Gestapo began to be interested in her aid activities, hid for two winter months in 1942 in H. Kraus’s apartment in Komorowice16. Moreover, in light of M. Linert’s accounts, a pre-war employee of the Education Department in Biała, Jadwiga Błotko, née Kołodziejczyk from the Komorowice area, as well as Aniela Puczka and the above-mentioned Maria Kamińska, living in Komorowice Śląskie, with her daughter Władysława, whose brother was imprisoned in KL Auschwitz, were involved in these activities17.
These young women from Komorowice, rushing to help prisoners from KL Auschwitz, when they appeared in Brzeszcze, were diminutively called “Ladies from Bielsko” by prisoners who did not know their names. As Helena Kraus wrote, all of them, according to their means and time, delivered the following to the Moroń’s house: “bread, sugar, tea, coffee, margarine, sometimes cold meats and butter. Because I worked in a factory, I could only go there on Sundays. Matylda was registered as a helper on her parents’ farm, so she could travel more often. That’s why she went there most often. Unfortunately, it lasted only about two years, because someone probably from the prisoner supervision reported it to the camp authorities.”18. Years later, Matylda Linert described this event in her accounts from November 5, 1974: “In 1943, I almost fell into the hands of the Gestapo when I brought food to Mrs. Moroń. After unpacking and storing the food and food stamps in the potato cellar, I was in the apartment. Then three prisoners I knew and a kapo, but not one I knew, entered the apartment. I said hello to the prisoners, and when I spoke to the kapo in German, he looked at me with a menacing and evil look. Embarrassed, I sat down next to the stove and started adding wood to the fire. When the kapo took the keys to the shed and the prisoners went to get their work tools, I secretly escaped to the Jawiszowice railway station. The kapo informed the camp authorities in Oświęcim. Immediately the police arrived on horses. A search was carried out at Mrs. Moroń’s place and food supplies and food stamps were found. Mrs. Moroń was arrested and sent to the camp in Oświęcim. She did not reveal who provided her with food and medicines. She took the blame. The daughter, Honorata, was brought in, but her description did not match mine. She was a brunette and 15 years younger than me. They were looking for a light blonde, saying that “the Holy Spirit did not multiply as much food”19.
The three men whom Matylda Linert greeted were, according to one of them, locked in a bunker within the camp for three days, without access to food or water. They emerged half-conscious. “One of them, named Józef Haszczewski, told me this when, after we regained independence, he came to Komorowice to thank us “girls from Bielsko” for the food and medicines that were secretly transported to the camp. Then he received a coupon for clothes from Helena Kraus and he got a job, and moved to Bielsko-Biała, 8/30 Spółdzielców Street, suite 7.”20
Imprisoned in the camp prison in block no. 4 in KL Auschwitz I, Mrs. Moroń was released after a two-and-a-half-week investigation thanks to the efforts of one of the supervising officers, who often allowed prisoners to be fed and also took advantage of it himself. This German, in the name of well-understood self-interest, explained to the arrested person and her family what they should say during the investigation. As a result, the extremely brave and composed Mrs. Moroń not only did not betray anyone, but was released after less than twenty days. So, with the help of her miner husband and her young daughter, Honorata, she could still feed the prisoners who came to her shed for tools. Matylda, on the other hand, was told that she was not to be seen in Brzeszcze because she was wanted by the Gestapo and the Moroń’s house was under surveillance. At the same time, she was given a new address, which was a house located near the market square in Brzeszcze. She took food parcels there only a few times. Her father, fearing for her, locked her door. However, she would jump out of the window of a low one-story house and, early in the morning, often trudging through snowdrifts with a suitcase of food, she would go to the railway station two kilometres away. The half-hour journey from the station in Jawiszowice to the Moroń’s house was equally difficult and long. She was often in a hurry because at home she had to cook dinner for the whole family that same day.
14 “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, p. 445.
15 See Stanisława Morończyk. “Ludzie dobrej woli. Księga pamięci mieszkańców Ziemi Oświęcimskiej niosącej pomoc więźniom KL Auschwitz pod re 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. 197-198.
16 Accounts submitted on November 18, 1982 by Stanisława Morończyk, born December 4, 1920 in Brzeszcze, a teacher by profession, living in Brzeszcze, 3 Kosynierów Street, about her participation in the resistance movement. APMA-B. Collection of Testimonies, vol. 99, pp. 88-90.
17 It was Konstanty Kamiński, born on September 16, 1920, in Komorowice, a turner by profession, prisoner number 1406. Transferred in 1944 to KL Ravensbrück, he died there. In the cited work “Ludzie dobrej woli...” (“People of Good Will…”) the authors write that his mother and sister were “probably” residents of Brzeszcze. See p. 295.
18 Helena Kraus “Wspomnienie poświęcone Matyldzie…” (“Recollections dedicated to Matylda…”), op. cit., p. 2.
19 Accounts by Matylda Linert, née Pikoń from November 5, 1974, residing in Komorowice 447, poviat Bielsko-Biała, pp. 16-17. File of Matylda Pikoń, married name Linert, No. 269, Collections of the Generał Elżbieta Zawadzka Foundation. Archive of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Digital Library. https://kpbc.umk.pl/dlibra/publication/201065/edition/202732 [Access May 22, 2024].