E4 Victim and Saviour

After the invasion of Poland by the German Wehrmacht in 1939, Alfreda (“Nocia”) Markowska’s family went into hiding – as Roma, they were persecuted as so-called “gypsies”. In 1941, German soldiers discovered the family’s hiding place and murdered every one of them. The only person to escape the massacre was fifteen-year-old Alfreda. She had been out to get food. Even though she was later caught, she managed to escape. Using forged ID, she found work with the railway company, where she had to maintain the tracks and carry the dead off deportation trains. One day, a woman on a train to Auschwitz secretly gave her four-year-old son, Karol Parno Gierlinski, to Alfreda, and begged her to keep him safe. Alfreda managed to find him a place with a family. Karol survived and went on to become a famous artist. Alfreda Markowska saved many more persecuted children by organising hiding places and securing false papers for them. It’s unclear just how many people she managed to rescue, but estimates put the figure at up to 50 children.