One of the fields of activity of the Nomina Rosae Foundation is local history of Nowy Sącz and the region. Because of that we collect materials, sources and artifacts, which help us more fully understand, keep and share it.

Some of the testimonies shared below have been recorded within the „War-time Nowy Sącz” project, some of them were recorded earlier.

Władysława Furmańska

Anna Grygiel-Huryn

Józefa Lewicka

Helena Migacz

The Witold Pilecki Institute of Solidarity and Valor in Warsaw records the reminiscences of people who witnessed history as part of the “Witnesses to the Age” project.

By courtesy of the project’s managers, as part of the “War-time Nowy Sącz”, we share the interviews that relate to our city and its vicinity.

Józef Czop

Reminiscences of Mr. Józef Czop, recorded on 26 June 2021 in Nowy Sącz.

Józef Czop (born 1932 in Nowy Sącz) comes from a railwaymen family. During World War II he lived in Nowy Sącz, where he witnessed, among others, the blowing up of the castle and the liquidation of the ghetto. As a teenager, he worked on the construction of German trenches. After the war, he graduated from the railway vocational school and worked on the railway for over 41 years. Very attached to his hometown, he played for the “Sandecja Nowy Sącz” football club.

Maria Harcuła

Reminiscences of Mrs. Maria Harcuła, recorded on 11 July 2019 in Nowy Sącz.

Maria Harcuła (born 1945 in Nowy Sącz) relates the family traditions from the partition period, the interwar period, the German occupation and the days after the Russians took over Nowy Sącz. She recalls the story of Col. Piasecki, who lived close by, and who was murdered in Auschwitz. She talks about her childhood, school education and the Higher College of Teacher Training in Kraków. She also talks about the changes in Nowy Sącz she personally witnessed, about her passion for acting and her numerous performances in Nowy Sącz and Krakow, as well as about her professional work and her brother prof. Józef Lipiec.

Stanisław Harnik

Reminiscences of Mr. Stanisław Harnik, recorded on 11 July 2019 in Nowy Sącz.

Stanisław Harnik (born 1934 in Nowy Sącz) recalls his childhood in Nowy Sącz, where he grew up in a craftsmen and railwaymen family. He talks about the pre-war Nowy Sącz and its most important locations, such as „Venice” or the castle. He recalls the period of German occupation and the battle for the city in January 1945, when he saw the blown up royal castle. He talks about his post-war education in schools in Nowy Sącz and Olsztyn, where he graduated from the university, and he also mentions his sports achievements as a boxer.

Irena Nieć

Reminiscences of Mrs Irena Nieć, recorded on 10 July 2019 in Nowy Sącz.

Irena Nieć née Sokulska (born 1934 in Nowy Sącz) recalls the times of her youth, when she lived almost in the center of Nowy Sącz, and her parents ran a large shop in the main market square. She talks about a family from Lviv, their neighbors. She recalls the German occupation, the blowing up of the castle and the coming of the Red Army, as well as her post-war life and acting career at the Workers’ Theatre in Nowy Sącz.

Maria Krzykalska

Reminiscences of Mrs. Maria Krzykalska, recorded on 10 July 2019 in Nowy Sącz.

Maria Krzykalska (born 1951 in Nowy Sącz) recalls family stories about the roots of the Freisler family from which she comes. She talks about the pre-war years and the period of German occupation. She pays special attention to Jan Freisler, a well-known courier who smuggled people from occupied Poland to Hungary. Maria also recalls her childhood at Freisler family house on Nawojowska Str. in Nowy Sącz, studying at the Higher College of Teacher Training in Kraków and her professional life.

Tadeusz Rychlak

Reminiscences of Mr. Tadeusz Rychlak, recorded on 26 June 2021 in Nowy Sącz.

Tadeusz Rychlak (born 1927 in Nowy Sącz) comes from a railwaymen family living in the “Hell” district – the infamous part of Nowy Sącz, which was a real mix of cultures. Mr. Tadeusz has been living in his house continuously for 94 years He talks about the pre-war Nowy Sącz, including the flood of 1934. During the German occupation, he witnessed German crimes, including the liquidation of the ghetto. After the war, he became involved in the scouting organization, which he is still associated with today. A science teacher by profession, he worked in primary schools in Stara Wieś, Korzenna, Mszalnica and Paszyn and in the Special School in Nowy Sącz.

Edward Storch

Reminiscences of Mr. Edward Storch, recorded on 25 June 2021 in Nowy Sącz.

Edward Storch (born 1935 in Nowy Sącz) comes from a farming family, from a village of Gołąbkowice, which no longer exists today (it is now a district of Nowy Sącz). He graduated from high school in Nowy Sącz and from a local branch of the Faculty of Art and Pedagogy of the Silesian University in Cieszyn. He worked as a teacher at the primary school in Piątkowa and at the College of Teacher Training in Nowy Sącz. He has been a member of the Polish Tourist and Sightseeing Society (PTTK) since 1978, a field guide in the Beskid Mountains and a tour pilot. He is the chairman of the “Beskid” Branch of the Committee for the Protection of Historical Monuments.

Joanna Wiśniewska

Reminiscences of Mrs. Joanna Wiśniewska, recorded on 30 June 2021 in Nowy Sącz.

Joanna Wiśniewska née Kowal (born 1932 in Nowy Sącz) spent her childhood among railway workers. In 1950, after graduating from the Pedagogical High School in Nowy Sącz, she received an administrative work order to go to primary school in Lisia Góra. She studied in Poznań, later she worked at the Pedagogical College in Tarnów. After her wedding, she moved to Żywiec, studied Russian philology in Krakow externally and worked at the Pedagogical College in Żywiec and in the Board of Education. She lives in Nowy Sącz

Irena Zielińska

Reminiscences of Mrs. Irena Zielińska, recorded on 10 July 2019 in Nowy Sącz.

Irena Zielińska née Bereś (born 1933 in Nowy Sącz) describes the pre-war Nowy Sącz, her childhood and the hard period after her mother’s death. She talks about the German occupation and the fate of the Jewish people. She recalls the end of the war, the 1956 Poznań protests, which she witnessed, as well as the Martial law in Poland. She talks about her brother Jerzy Bereś, a recognized artist – sculptor.

More about the “Witnesses to the Age” project:
https://instytutpileckiego.pl/en/kolekcje-cyfrowe/swiadkowie-epoki

German Occupation in Nowy Sącz During World War II

Aneta Grabowska

Script of a HISTORY lesson

The objectives of the lesson:

Student:
• correctly uses the terms: Gestapo, operation “Reinhardt”, ghetto, concentration camps, extermination camps, “the final solution of the Jewish question”, the Holocaust;
• knows the dates of: the German troops entering Nowy Sącz, April operation, operation “Reinhardt”;
• presents the reality of everyday life in occupied Nowy Sącz;
• describes the ways in which the German occupants fought Polishness;
• lists the methods of extermination of the Polish society used by the Germans;
• characterizes the fascists’ policy toward the Jewish population in Polish lands.

Methods:
• teaching conversation;
• film fragments analysis;
• working with a map;
• working with source text.

1. Organisational activities: roll call, giving students the subject and objectives of the lesson.

2. The teacher reads to the students a fragment of a speech given by Adolf Hitler on 22 August 1939,

Adolf Hitler’s speech given to Wehrmacht officers, outlining the goals to be achieved by German troops in Poland (excerpts):

…Our strength consists in our speed and in our brutality. […] It’s a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me. I have issued the command – and I’ll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad – that our war aim does not consist in reaching certain lines, but in the physical destruction of the enemy. Accordingly, I have placed my Totenkopf formation in readiness – for the present only in the East – with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? […] Poland will be depopulated and settled with Germans. My pact with Poland was, after all, intended only to gain time…
It’s a matter of utter indifference to me whether or not the world believes me.
The world believes in success alone.
For you, gentlemen, glory and honor are in the offing, such as have not beckoned for centuries. Be tough! Be without compassion! Act more quickly and more brutally than the others. The citizens of western Europe must shudder in horror. That’s the most humane method of conducting war, for that scares them off… And now: at the enemy! In Warsaw we shall meet again and celebrate!
Source: Lochner, L.P, What About Germany? 1942 Dodd, Mead & Company, pp. 11–12.

3. The teacher approaches the map and reminds the students how the border agreed upon in the Boundary and Friendship Treaty of 28 September 1939 between the USSR and the Third Reich was drawn.

4. The student selected by the teacher presents on the map where the border of the General Government was.
Students should notice where the capital of the GG was located and that their hometown (Nowy Sącz) was part of the GG.
The teacher shortly recapitulates the assumptions of Heinrich Himmler, who believed that the extermination of the Poles is the main duty of the German nation and quotes Hitler’s words from October 1939, after the GG was created: …This territory should be treated as an almshouse for Poles, Jews and other rabble… The only thing we want from there is labor force…
The teacher talks about everyday life in the GG, shutdown of Polish institutions and administration, destruction of Polish monuments.

5. Based on the 3 parts of the “War-time Triptych”: “Part I: Jadwiga”, “Part II: Berta”, “Part III: Helena” students answer the questions:

Links:

https://youtu.be/8qW_IYt3NOE

(students should watch them before the lesson as part of a homework assignment)

Test:

1. When did the German troops enter Nowy Sącz? — ……………………………
2. What surprised the Polish people the most in the soldiers’ behavior? — …………………………
3. Present the merits of Jadwiga Wolska for the people of Nowy Sącz. — ……………………………
4. What emotions did Heinrich Hamann invoke in the people of the city? — …………………
5. What was the name of the Jewish girl Stefan Mazur had hidden on the town hall tower? — ……………………………
6. List the two most numerous religious groups that lived in Nowy Sącz before the war. — ……………………………
7. When was the Nowy Sącz ghetto created? Describe its location. — ………………………
8. What was the operation “Reinhardt”? — ………………………………………………………………
9. How did the 1st deportation of Jewish people of Nowy Sącz look like? — ……………………………
10. List the restrictions imposed on the Polish population. — ……………………………
11. What was the name of Jagiellońska Street and whose name was given to the Main Square of Nowy Sącz in the occupation period? — ……………………………

Answers:

Answer.1 When did the German troops enter Nowy Sącz?
— 6.09.1939

The teacher can present the source text to the students (available at the www.wojennysacz.pl website in the Reading Room section):

…Nowy Sącz, although prepared for defense, was still not fully evacuated and all ways possible were used to move the military units and reservists still remaining in the city out of it. This is how Certified Cpt. Zygmunt Węgorek described what was happening in the city before noon on 5 September:The city and the barracks are full of soldiers, it was a mobilizing point of a whole range of units. The city is an image of a great campground. Besides people, there are thousands of peasant wagons and horses. There is no physical force that could set it all in order. These masses from yesterday’s nightfall started floating eastwards. The Nowy Sącz – Grybów road is completely packed. Solitary policemen still remaining in the city tried to take control of the situation, they had to cope not only with the commotion on the roads, but also with looting of the abandoned shops and of the Tobacco Monopoly warehouse.
Thanks to the operations of their air forces, the Germans knew exactly, that the Polish defense was soon to center on the city of Nowy Sącz, which was not suitably prepared for the fights. This conviction was probably reinforced by the report of one of the pilots, in which he stated that fresh earthwork on fortifications, i.e. trenches and anti-fragmentation dug-outs, was being done near Nowy Sącz. The Germans also obtained information on what to expect in the city, from captured soldiers. In one of the reports prepared by the officers in the command of the 2nd Mountain Division attacking along the valley of the Dunajec River one can read: In Nowy Sącz, there are still various Rez[erve] formations, barracked in schools. It seems that there are no fortifications and no artillery from Nowy Sącz to Jazowsko. Since last week there are no regular units in Nowy Sącz. Nowy Sącz is in great disorder. Reserve soldiers are partially in civilian clothes.
Only after passing Mała Wieś, about 500 meters before the Helena residential area (which is a suburb of Nowy Sącz, but administratively a part of Chełmiec), the Germans were shot at by machine guns – both from the front, as well as from the right and left. In the Helena area there was probably an alarm outpost of the Lt. Mach company, which has taken the previously prepared positions approximately along the railway embankment, suitable for defense.

Answer 2. What surprised the Polish people the most in the soldiers’ behavior?
— How cruel they could be The students give examples from the film that stuck in their memory.

Answer 3. Present the merits of Jadwiga Wolska for the people of Nowy Sącz.
— Bold, self-denying, selfless. “Guardian Angel”, “Mother of Mercy”. She helped those in need, founded a house for orphaned boys. She helped the Jewish people of Nowy Sącz, did social work in the Polish Committee for the Displaced. She was the head of the political prisoners aid section.

Answer 4. What emotions did Heinrich Hamann invoke in the people of the city
— fear, dread,”a two-legged monster”

The teacher can introduce the source text to the students:

Hamann, the chief of the Gestapo, was a natural-born murderer. He systematically abused the Jewish people. I started with robberies. […] Soon there were first victims. […] In order to scare the Judenrat and the auxillary police, so that they would be an even better instrument for him, he ordered several members of Judenrat to be shot at the cemetery. It was in 1941. Among those murdered were: Israel Wenzelberg, Leon Goldberger, Mendel Wasner and others. […] At the beginning of 1942, Hamann ordered the imprisonment of sixty Jews (including Peterfreund, Chaim and Rajza Klagsbald) on charges of housing reearangments. They were taken from prison to the cemetery and shot there. […] In April 1942 Hamann found an accidentally preserved list of members of Max Rozenfeld’s library which was used by the Jewish residents of Nowy Sącz before the war, in the Court’s archive. Hamann ordered for all people from the list to be brought to him. There were around 400 of them. All of them young, the most beautiful of children. “They are all Communists!” – Hamann says. He made a spectacle of them in prison. […] In the morning they were chained, taken to the cemetery and shot. The corpses were thrown into pits, dug in advance by the Jewish auxillary police. […] [After the ghetto was liquidated] the Gestapo officers rounded up a group of hiding Jewish people, about 50, took them to the cemetery and murdered them there. Hela [Goldberger] was shot personally by Hamann”[1].

Footnotes

!!!! Hamann, who during the Bochum trial was proven to be responsbile for 77 murders, was sentenced to life in 1966, but was released due to poor health in 1985. He died in an old people’s home in 1993.

Answer 5. What was the name of the Jewish girl Stefan Mazur had hidden on the town hall tower?
– Berta Korennman

Answer 6. List the two most numerous religious groups that lived in Nowy Sącz before the war
– Catholic, Jewish

Answer 7. When was the Nowy Sącz ghetto created? Where was it located
– 12 August 1940
Closed ghetto – between the Market Square and the castle, bounded by the streets: Bożnicza, Pijarska and Piotra Skargi. In June 1941, it was enclosed with a three-meter wall.
Open ghetto – created in the Zamienica district, also called “Hell”. Jewish people who were able to work lived in it. The borders of the ghetto were the Kamienica River and the streets: Kraszewskiego, Lwowska, Barska, Hallera and Zdrojowa.

Answer 8. What was the operation “Reinhardt”
– it is the code name of the German plan to murder the Jewish people of the General Government and the Białystok District.

Answer 9. How did the 1st deportation of Jewish people of Nowy Sącz look like?
– The Jews were gathered on the banks of the Dunajec River according to apartment numbers, with keys in their hands which that had to give up. They walked along the Dunajec River embankments, through “Kocie Planty” park to the railway station, from where they were transported to Bełżec.

Answer 10. What was the name of Jagiellońska Street and Main Square in the occupation period?
– Jagiellońska Str. – Hauptstrasse (Main Street)
Market Square – Adolf Hitler’s Square

6. The teacher uses the map on the www.wojennysacz.pl website to point out the places where the occupants created labor camps, the places of mass executions of Poles, the Jewish ghetto.

7. The teacher asks students about their thought after watching the films. What emotions did they feel, did something surprise or astonish them?

The subject of the lesson is a basis for reflection on the importance of values such as freedom, human rights, tolerance, social solidarity in human life.
It should be made clear to the students that it was “people who did this to other people”, and the free world remained silent.
When working on this subject it is worth referring to contemporary examples of genocide, terrorism and racist practices.

Anna Żalińska

Every sacrifice made of life, including ones in the name of homeland’s freedom, is painful and difficult for those loved ones who survived. But the fate of these families, in which the occupant managed to kill almost everyone, and the few who remained, scattered around the world, seems particularly tragic. That is how the natural carriers of memory die; then the duty to commemorate the dead heroes rests completely on the local community. That was the case of the Stobiecki family.

Józef Bieniek, one of the guardians of memory of the life and martyrdom of the Stobiecki family, gave this evaluation to their attitude: The family shone in the gloomy darkness of these times with a glow of the highest value that humanity and mankind can boast of.[1] Despite the occupant’s efforts to turn the Polish nation into a cheap labor force, devoid of moral sense, detached from their culture and mutual national relations, the Stobieckis actively and effectively worked in the field of underground resistance, and being tortured they did not give away anyone from among the many members of the resistance with whom they cooperated. From the family of seven involved in underground activities a mother and four of her children died. Two siblings survived, son Władysław and daughter Elżbieta, the latter probably died in Canada, where near the end of her life she often went to visit her daughters and for treatment.

And such was the history of the family: Maria Jarosz was born in Krakow on 20 April 1878 She was a teacher herself and she married a teacher of secondary school, who later became a school inspector – Stanisław Stobiecki. They had six children: Janina, Celina, Elżbieta, Zygmunt, Władysław and Alina, who were raised in an atmosphere of patriotism and mutual support. Stanisław Stobiecki died before the war, in 1938. Just before its outbreak, Janina, the oldest of the siblings (born on 4 October 1908 in Krakow), with teacher’s education, was working at the Urszula Kochanowska Elementary School in Nowy Sącz. The same profession was chosen by the two-years-younger Celina, who was born on 14 October 1910. She taught at the Św. Jadwiga Śląska Elementary School (renamed in 1946 to Królowej Jadwigi).[2] Another child of the Stobieckis – Elżbieta, born on 4 July 1912 – moved to Kraków probably before the war, most likely working there as an office clerk (she graduated from a secondary economic school). She married Jan Wądolny, who came from Mucharz. On 7 June 1943, in the occupied Krakow, between the two dates of tragic family accidents, their first daughter Ewa was born. Elizabeth’s husband also got involved in the underground resistance. He was caught by the Germans, and his stayed in prison cost him a permanent health loss. After the war, he belonged to the Society of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy (ZBOWiD). On 3 September 1948, in Katowice, the second child – Barbara – was born in the Wądolny family. Both daughters left for Canada in the 1970s. In 1978, after the death of her husband Jan, ailing Elżbieta would also often travel from Kraków to Canada.[3]

Let’s get back to the chronology of events. Later, after three daughters, two sons were born in the Stobiecki family: Zygmunt, born in 1914 (celebrating his birthday on 10 April), before the war he studied medicine at the Medical Faculty of the Poznań University.[4] Three years later, on 28 May 1917, Władysław was born. It is hard to write anything certain about his life of the pre-war and occupation periods because of the lack of sources. During the occupation he probably lived in Nowy Sącz at Sobieskiego Str. with his wife and two daughters.[5] Sure enough, after the war, in the 1970s he lived  in Gliwice as a retired teacher (another child who went in the professional footsteps of the parents!), and his last place of work was the Mining School Complex of the “Sosnowiec” mine.[6]

The Stobieckis’ last child, Alina, was significantly younger than her siblings, she was born on 28 May 1923 (in the forty-fifth year of the mother’s life) in Nowy Sącz. At the outbreak of the war Alina was 16 years old, she was a schoolgirl and also a scout. Her sister Janina was also a girl scout in the 1st Girl Scout Troop in Nowy Sącz, Celina was probably also a member of the same team.[7]

The house at Kunegundy 14 Str. where Maria Stobiecka lived with her daughters Janina, Celina and Alina, from the autumn of 1939 was already serving the fight against the occupant. Zygmunt was the one who introduced the family tot he resistance as an incredibly ideological person, an altruist. The outbreak of the war found him spending the summer holidays in his family home. On 1 September Zygmunt already volunteered at the District Recruiting Command to join the army. He was sent to join a unit forming in Lviv. Due to the German strategy of Blitzkrieg Zygmunt did make it to the unit; after wandering for three weeks he returned to Nowy Sącz.[8] Here, he quickly noticed the huge and uncontrolled influx of refugees (especially soldiers and volunteers to the army in the West, political and social activists) and the resulting need to guide them safely south, through Slovakia to Hungary. Spontaneously, as one of the first, together with his friends (including Lesław Wojtyga, Ignacy Klimaszewski, Jan Żółciński, with help of Tadeusz Sokołowski and his mother Anna) he organizes a smuggling operation, providing safe houses, border intelligence and communication network. With the involvement of his mother and sisters, the Stobiecki’s family house becomes a temporary lodging on the smuggling route to Hungary. A similar spontaneous response to the influx of refugees was the Refugee Help Committee established by the Sichrawas, in which, among others, the Stefaniszyn sisters became involved.[9]

Zygmunt’s older sisters, Janina and Celina Stobiecki, supported their brother in the organization of smuggling routes. Also, after the formation of the underground state structures in Nowy Sącz, managed from Warsaw, Janina, operating under the code name “Jola” and Celina began acting as runners between Nowy Sącz and Kraków and Warsaw, carrying money and mail, delivered by couriers from Hungary.[10]

Zygmunt, code name “Zymek” repeatedly crossed the borders as a guide and courier, reaching Budapest. In February 1940, the first great border “giveaway” happens. Zygmunt is wanted by the German border police, Greko in short (the so-called border police commissariat – Grenzpolizeikommissariat Neu-Sandez)[11], commanded by Heinrich Hamann. Stobiecki fled to Krakow, where he received false documents for his mother’s maiden name – Jarosz. Under the new pseudonym, “Zygmunt”, he became involved in the work of ZWZ-Kraków district as a head of the Section for Aid of Prisoners and Victims of Nazi terror, cooperating with his sister residing in Krakow, Elżbieta Wądolny. Elżbieta operated secret mail boxes in Krakow and Tarnów. In addition, Zygmunt stayed in contact with prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, to which he delivered medicine and other necessary articles. The main links of the communication network were Polish guards and staff of charitable organizations, among others, providing food to political prisoners.[12]

Zygmunt Stobiecki, as a man of leftist views, used his sister’s apartment in Kraków at Tomasza 26 Str. as a secret meeting place for groups of Kraków leftist activists (one of them was Józef Cyrankiewicz, the post-war Prime Minister and member of the Polish United Workers’ Party).[13]

As a result of the next “giveaway” in the District headquarters at Krupnicza Str. in Kraków, Zygmunt’s Kennkarte got in the hands of the Gestapo. He went into hiding again, often changing his place of residence, efficiently rebuilding the network of communication with prisons, but as a result of a informant’s denunciation he was arrested on 20 June 1941 He was kept in the Montelupich Prison. After a brutal investigation at the Gestapo building on Pomorska Str., during which he did not give anyone away, he was sentenced to death. He sent a farewell letter to Elżbieta’s Kraków address, using the secret mail network he himself organized. It contained a kind of last will: Whatever shall await you on the underground trail, never go back, and do not hesitate for a moment when the decision to act comes has to be made. Because in the present situation there is nothing more important than serving the tormented Homeland and the fight for its freedom.[14] Zygmunt Stobiecki was sent to Auschwitz, where, after months of being used for hard work, on 14 April 1942, his death sentence was carried out.[15]

After Zygmunt was arrested, his mother and sisters ceased their activities. Receiving news of his death was a very painfully experience for them. However, they did not close themselves up in their pain. In the period in which they did not engage in the underground resistance, they continued providing material assistance to the Jewish people in the Nowy Sącz ghetto.[16]

Maria Stobiecka and her daughters resumed their underground work in winter, at the turn of 1942 and 1943. Then Janina became the main driving force of their operations and their initiator was Maria Wzorkówna  “Kinga”. It was her who introduced the Stobiecki women with Jan Lipczewski “Andrzej”, who was sent by the Home Army Main Headquarters from Kielce to rebuild the organizational network of the Home Army Inspectorate in Nowy Sącz. They did not refuse and entered the new organizational structures of the underground state.[17]

Celina Stobiecka monitored the radio broadcasts, and based on it, together with Janina they would create information bulletins. In addition, they were talking care of administrative and office work of the Home Army Nowy Sącz District Inspectorate – “Niwa”. The “Niwa’s” Communications Department was located at their house and its operation was supervised by Janina. She acted as a liaison between the Nowy Sącz inspectorate and the District Commands of: Sącz, Limanowa, Gorlice and Nowy Targ.[18] In addition, she was involved in the activities of the Women’s Military Service.[19] Celina coordinated the “N” operation in Nowy Sącz – which was diversionary and propaganda actions directed against the Germans. The youngest of the sisters, Alina, was tasked with the distribution of “N” prints in German.[20]

The tragedy strikes unexpectedly. On Sunday, 19 March 1944 Janina was coming back from Kraków to Nowy Sacz. She spent her free Saturday and Sunday with her sister Elżbieta and her infant niece Ewa. On the way back, at Lipczewski’s request, she took with her underground “tissue paper” and radio parts. In Tarnów she had to change; as she waited for the train, she was surprised by a German inspection. The Nazis round the passengers up in an underground tunnel. Although – according to Józef Bieniek – Janina managed to leave the dangerous package on the platform unnoticed, her appearance matched the description of someone wanted by Gestapo. Or maybe someone gave her away as the owner of the abandoned package? She was arrested. The investigation was conducted in Tarnów, then in Kraków, where Janina gets identified and sent back to Nowy Sącz. During the interrogations she gave nobody away.[21]

As Janina did not return on Sunday, as she was supposed to, anxiety grew in Stobiecki house with each passing day. Unfortunately, the women did not take any precautions against the possible intrusion of the German police. Three days after Janina’s arrest, on 22 March, the Nowy Sącz Greko searched the suspect’s house. The radio, the typewriter, the duplicator and great amount of underground press (including propaganda prints in German) and mail were quickly discovered, with the names of encrypted mailboxes and code names.[22] Mother and daughter, who were at home, Maria and Alina, are arrested. Celina is brought in to the police station at Czarnieckiego 13 Str. from school, where she had classes at the time. One of the students of the Św. Jadwiga School remembered the event. The Germans gathered all the students and staff in the courtyard, singled out the “beloved” teacher, who was publicly defamed, accused of hostile activity, and then escorted to a car.[23] It is very possible that it took place in the courtyard of the Immaculate Conception Sisters monastery, which housed a total of six elementary schools during the occupation after their buildings were taken over for military purposes.[24]

Already after the first search of the Stobiecki house, the Germans noticed – rightly so – that they picked up the trail of an important organization. In search of further underground materials, their house was literally turned upside down. There is a special team working here, ripping up the floors, breaking down plasterwork, smashing stoves and searching every nook and cranny.[25] However, they did not find anything that would lead them to next victims.

Soon after the Stobieckis was arrested, the people they worked with, and those were often entire families, were in panic. Some, quickly reacted and decided to save themselves from the expected arrest by fleeing from Nowy Sącz. But days passed after days and nothing happened. The women stayed silent, probably infuriating SS-Hauptsturmführer Wilhelm Raschwitz, the then head of the Greko, who took over it after Hamann was moved to Kraków. Despite elaborate tortures. Finally, the Germans attempted to use the “ultimate” measure. They blackmailed Maria Stobiecka, promising to spare the lives of the battered daughters, Janina and Celina, in exchange for giving away their associates. The women did not yield, aware of the fact that their death means the life of many others. According to the findings of Bieniek, Janina and Celina were killed under the prison wall, shot in front of their mother on 25 April 1944.[26] According to another, more probable version, the women are shot in the presence of their mother at the Jewish cemetery. And it is there that they were buried.[27] Both sources mention that the Stobiecki sisters died shouting “Long live Poland!”. The same words could be heard from Maria two days later, on 27 April 1944, when the execution platoon shot her in Rdziostów. Before that, her youngest daughter, Alina, was killed in front of her. And so the pained mother said goodbye to her children and her Homeland[28].

Reportedly, shortly after the execution, a conversation was to take place between Johann Heuchert, a German interpreter employed at Greko, who took part in the savage interrogations of the Stobiecki women, and a Polish farmer supplying him with cured meats, who was also an informant of the Home Army. Heuchert, though reluctant, supposedly admitted: Congratulations! If all your women are such heroes, no power will ever beat you. Yes, yes, these women were exceptionally brave and very strong.[29]

In the same execution, in which Maria and Alina died, two other heroines, a young scout and her mother were shot: Maria Kardaszewicz and her daughter Ewa, a schoolgirl and a 16-year-old team leader of the Gray Ranks. After the war, the bodies of these four victims were exhumed from the crime scene in the Rdziostów forest. The exhumation protocols of Mary and Alina indicate that their bodies were recognized by their clothes and hair, and the visual inspection was conducted with participation of: Witold Barbacki, Jerzy Kardaszewicz, Władysław Stobiecki and Elżbieta Wądolny.[30] The bodies of Janina and Celina were not be identified.

Today all of them rest together at the municipal cemetery on Rejtana Str. Maria Kardaszewicz with her daughter Ewa, Maria Stobiecka and Alina, and in the tombs there is a place prepared for Janina and Celina, as evidenced by symbolical inscriptions. In addition, the Councilors of the City of Nowy Sącz honored the heroic family, giving the name of the Stobiecki Family to one of the streets which crosses the Lwowska Str. in the Gołąbkowice district.

——————————————————————————————

[1] Józef Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich (z dziejów ruchu oporu na ziemi sądeckiej), “Rocznik Sądecki” 1966, vol. 7, p. 399.

[2] http://sp2ns.pl/informacje/, accessed on: 2.10.2021.

[3] The information about Elizabeth, as well as the father’s year of death given above, come from passport files kept in the Institute of National Remembrance: IPN Kr 37/54386, Akta Paszportowe Elżbiety Wądolnej, Podanie-Kwestionariusz z 1987 roku i wcześniejsze; other information after: J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich, pp. 399, 400.

[4] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich, p. 400.

[5] See footnote 23.

[6] IPN Kr 37/54386, Akta Paszportowe Elżbiety Wądolnej, Podanie-Kwestionariusz z 1987.

[7] Stobiecka Alina, Stobiecka Janina [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk o niepodległość Polski, Warszawa 1988, pp. 377–378, cf. also Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie Oddział w Nowym Sączu (later as ANKr O/NS), Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa na Sądecczyźnie, ref. 31/559/34, Pismo zaświadczające o udziale harcerek w działalności konspiracyjnej, p. 201.

[8] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich, p. 400.

[9] J. Bieniek, Lord znad Dunajca, “Almanach Sadecki” 1995, № 4 (13), pp. 45–46, 51.

[10] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa…, ref. 31/559/34, Pismo zaświadczające o udziale harcerek w działalności konspiracyjnej, p. 201; also: Stobiecka Maria, Stobiecka Janina, Stobiecka Celina [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk…, p. 378.

[11] Commonly called “Gestapo”. It was the German border police, headquartered at Czarnieckiego 13 Str. Gestapo had never operated in Nowy Sącz, its functions were performed by the border police. For more information on the topic cf.: Dawid Golik, Obsada personalna niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa i służby bezpieczeństwa w powiecie nowosądeckim w latach 1939–1945, “Rocznik Sądecki” 2020, vol. 48, p. 214

[12] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich…, p. 402, cf. also: Stobiecka Maria [w:] Słownik uczestniczek walk…, p. 378.

[13] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich…, p. 405.

[14] Ibidem, p. 404.

[15] Ibidem.

[16] Stobiecka Celina, Stobiecka Janina, Stobiecka Maria [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk…, p. 378, p. 379.

[17] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich…, p.404.

[18] ANKr O/NS, Związek Kombatantów Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej i Byłych Więźniów Politycznych. Zarząd Okręgowy w Nowym Sączu, ref. 31/558/713, Kilka sylwetek Kobiet bardziej zaangażowanych w Ruch Oporu na terenie województwa,

[19] Stobiecka Janina [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk…, p. 378, cf. also: Leszek Migrała, Nowy Sącz w latach II wojny światowej, “Rocznik Sądecki” 2016, vol. 44, p. 108.

[20] Stobiecka Alina, Stobiecka Celina [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk…, p. 378.

[21] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich, p. 408.

[22] Ibidem, p. 409.

[23] Archiwum Sądeckiego Sztetlu, Wspomnienia Barbary Świdlińskiej de domo Werc, ur. 1935 r. w Kościanie, audio recording. Barbara Świdlińska recalls that her big sister would help younger children learn and because of that she was visiting the house of the sister of the teacher Stobiecka on Sobieskiego Str. There were two little daughters there, and their mother did not have time to help them learn. Because there were no other Stobiecki sisters, perhaps she means the family of the brother, Władysław. Born in 1917, he was 27 years old in 1944. Considering that before the war people married a lot sooner than today, Władysław might have had a child or even two children of early school age in the occupation period. It is possible that this information could be confirmed or disproved by a thorough query in the parish records of the St. Margaret church in Nowy Sącz or by contacting the family living outside Nowy Sącz.

[24] http://sp2ns.pl/informacje/, https://szkola.bialyklasztor.pl/tradycja/, accesed on: 2.10.2021.

[25] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich…, p. 409.

[26] Ibidem, p. 411.

[27] Stobiecka Celina, Stobiecka Janina [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk…, p. 378.

[28] J. Bieniek, Saga rodu Stobieckich…, p. 411.

[29] Ibidem, pp. 412–413.

[30] ANKr O/NS, Sandecjana, 31/190/54, Protokół ekshumacyjny Marii Stobieckiej, p. 63, Protokół ekshumacyjny Aliny Stobieckiej, p. 65.

Testimonies form the archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświecim, given by people from Nowy Sącz or connected to the city.

Zbigniew Adamczyk

Czesław Bartys

Jerzy Bogusz

Władysław Czech

Marian Dybus

Augustyn Franczyk

Apolinary Głąb

Bronisław Gościński

Adam Jurkiewicz

Adam Jurkiewicz 2

Adam Kozaczka

Wanda Marossanyi

Wanda Marossanyi 2

Wanda Marossanyi 3

Wanda Marossanyi 4

Wanda Marossanyi 5

Wanda Marossanyi 6

Eugeniusz Nosal

Eugeniusz Nosal 2

Eugeniusz Nosal 3

Eugeniusz Nosal 4

Aleksander Ogorzałek

Stanisław Piętka

Henryk Porębski

Wincenty Rejowski

Zofia Sikorowa

Zofia Sikorowa 2

Katia Singer

Wojciech Turski

Bronisław Wajda

Mieczysław Wiatr

Urszula Wrzecionek

Antoni Wykręt’s Letter

Anna Żalińska

The Kardaszewicz family consisted of Maria and Jerzy (both chemists by profession) and their two children: Jerzy junior, born in 1926 and Ewa, two years younger than him. Parents came from around Lviv, they moved to Warsaw before the war, and after it began, they took refuge in Nowy Sącz.[1] During the occupation, the whole family was involved in the activities of the underground resistance, all four of them were arrested, the men survived, the women – mother and daughter – could not have been saved, they sacrificed their lives together.

Jerzy Kardaszewicz senior was a chemical engineer with a PhD academic degree. Before the war, he worked for the Polish arms industry. Maria, a graduate of the Faculty of Chemistry of the Lviv Polytechnic University, ran her own pharmaceutical and chemical laboratory in Pionki near Radom, where the family lived in the years 1928–1938. One year before the outbreak of the war, they settled in the capital, where Maria started working in the National Engineering Works. Maria Kardaszewicz was the daughter of Jan Leciejewski, a gymnasium teacher, and Amelia née Cieplik. The family raised her to be a patriot, which she expressed by participating in the Defense of Lwów at the turn of the years 1918 and 1919 as a member of the gymnasium platoon. Afterwards she was active in the Female Military Training, a paramilitary organization founded in 1923 with roots dating back to the period of World War I[2].

Ewa Kardaszewicz was born on 10 May 1928 in Lviv. She attended elementary schools in Pionki, and later in Warsaw and in Nowy Sącz. When the war broke out, the family was evacuated east, and after the Soviet troops entered Poland on September 17, they retreated back to Warsaw. In spring 1940 Ewa, her parents and her brother moved to Nowy Sącz[3]. She was a woman of average height, with bright blond hair and blue eyes, who easily gained friends with her endearing appearance and nice disposition. She loved reading books, which, as a matter of fact, became her main entertainment in the absence of other possibilities of spending free time, such as cinema or theater. She was very talented, full of joy of life and love for the Homeland[4]. She quickly adapted to the new environment, and in 1943 she became involved in underground scouting movement[5].

Maria Kardaszewicz ran a shop during the occupation[6]. It was one of the underground contact post box, and Maria acted as a runner of an intelligence cell of the Nowy Sącz District Inspectorate (“Niwa”) between the ZWZ-AK Main Headquarters  in Warsaw and the Command of the Nowy Sącz-City District (“Nurt-I”). In addition, Maria Kardaszewicz maintained contact with the partisan unit of Lt. Julian Zubek. Her husband, Jerzy Kardaszewicz “Doktor”, was involved in the production of explosives for the Sapper Department of the Operations Branch of the ZWZ-AK Main Headquarters in Warsaw[7]. In 1944, he cooperated with “Tatar’s” forest unit[8] and the Soviet guerrilla. His son remembered, that he trained them, among others, in field mining[9].

Jerzy Kardaszewicz junior was a member of the Polish Scouting Organization (the so-called “Grey Ranks”) commanded by Andrzej Otmianowski. He was in charge of distributing press, military training and obtaining information about German military units[10].

Ewa graduated from the elementary school in 1943 and officially continued her education at the Trade Vocational School (one of the few secondary schools legally operating in occupied Nowy Sącz), while also, within the secret teaching organized by the Immaculate Conception Sisters, she followed the curriculum of the pre-war gymnasium. Ewa studied in the group taught by Janina Jaworska (married name Zagórzycka), a recent graduate of the secret high school of Nowy Sącz Immaculate Conception Sisters[11].

The apartment of Ewa Kardaszewicz, located in a German tenement house at Grodzka 39 Str. was a place of frequent meetings. The proximity of German owners paradoxically created a sense of security. Ewa, like her brother, was a sworn scout of the Girl Guides Organization with alias “Promyk” (“Little Ray”)  [12]. During one of the meetings, Ewa Kardaszewicz presented the scouting ideals and ways of their implementation in the occupational reality to her teacher Janina, “drawing” her into a 5-person patrol (apart from Kardaszewiczówna and Jaworska, its members were three Rudnicki sisters: Ewa, Barbara and Hanna). Janina took an oath and became a scout, and at the same a member of the Gray Ranks. The girls not only learned together, but also had time for working on their character, for physical exercises and for reading underground press, which was delivered by the team leader Zofia Otmianowska ( “Zorza” or “Małgorzata” – before the war, a member of Scouting Association Wielkopolska Region; her family was displaced from the Poznań region after the outbreak of the war, and ended up in Nowy Sącz)[13].

Ewa took part in tourist trips organized by the scouts in the area of Przehyba, Rożnowskie Lake and Pienin Mounatins. At one of such expeditions she completed a first-aid training. The Polish underground state trained field nurses to help in partisan units, as well as in the future insurgent operations[14].

Ewa was often accompanied by a dog she got from her father before the war. It was a Scottish terrier and his name was “Jolly Donald”. The dog went missing in mid-March 1944 – It was the harbinger of disaster – Ewa’s anonymous biographer wrote about this event[15].

Ewa’s main task in the Gray Ranks, apart from regular scout’s commitments, was to distributing underground press. Team leader Otmianowska brought, among other things the “Information Bulletin” and scouting periodical “Wzlot” from the command of the Kraków Region[16]. And so one day, after a finished lesson, Eve bragged before Janina Jaworska that her shoes (and they were heavy winter shoes probably very long) are completely stuffed with “tissue paper” (i.e. underground prints). Janina remembered the day well – 27 March 1944 – the day, when Ewa was taken away by the German police. Soon after the girls parted, one or two hours after Ewa went home, Andrzej Otmianowski, the brother of “Zorza” appeared in Janina’s apartment[17]. He gave her the terrible news about Kardaszewiczówna being arrested, ordered Janina to burn any underground press she had. After the arrest of Ewa Kardaszewicz and her tragic death, Janina ceased all activity in scouting and the underground movement[18].

On 27 March 1944, the German police arrested the entire Kardaszewicz family. First, Maria was taken from her shop, and then a trap was set up for the remaining family members in their apartment in the tenement house at Grodzka 39 Str. Ewa, her brother Jerzy, her parents and her mother’s sister, all were taken to prison. The aunt was released on the next day. The father was bailed out by his family (perhaps with underground movement’s money, as an important agent of the resistance[19]). The son, Jerzy, was beaten and interrogated and then sentenced to death. He escaped from the Tarnów prison one month before the execution, using a momentary confusion of the German services caused by the attempted assassination of Hitler, carried out on July 20 by Claus von Stauffenberg. Jerzy was helped by a bribed Polish guard, Jan Kroczek (who released him and two other prisoners from Nowy Sącz, Władysław Stender and Mieczysław Tumidajewicz, together with other inmates going out of the prison walls for work; Jerzy and his friends used the first opportunity to run for the forest. The guard also escaped[20]). Władysława Lubasiowa deatils the next part of their escape and hiding in her memories printed in “Almanach Sądecki”. Jerzy Kardaszewicz was among those who secured her escape from the city when she was wanted by the German police and she had to hide in the forest[21]. Andrzej Otmianowski, who was meant to die together with the three above mentioned, did not survive – he died on 28 August 1944 in the execution in Zbylitowska Góra near Tarnów along with other victims from Nowy Sącz[22].

Maria and Eve were subjected to a brutal investigation in which they did not give anyone away. They died on 27 April 1944, shot in Rdziostów[23]. In the same execution two other heroic women were killed: Maria Stobiecka and her daughter Alina, and also four men. According to an eyewitness account, Ewa Kardaszewicz was to die shouting  “Long live Poland!”. She died less than twenty days before her 16th birthday[24].

Jerzy Kardaszewicz was deeply affected by this personal tragedy – he did not recognized any people met on the street, he moved around as if he was in a trance – Janina Jaworska-Zagórzycka, Ewa’s teacher, recalled. She herself, after the death of her friend, wrote down the following poem in her diary:

          When the Little Ray has gone out

When I look at these mountains woven with spring mists
At these clouds hanging over, in running flying fits
When I feel the breeze of winds, caressing my face
I do not believe that Ewuniwa no longer is among us.

When the apple tree blooming on a quiet night in May
My whispered requests will rouse the powers ad a spell
The music of its leaves will bring back the hatred
The victims, the pain and the whip
And Ewunia’s effort with it.

When under the blue of the sky I hear the angles sing
And a slender charming poplar extends its arms for me
Like a faithful companion and brother, in my earthly years
I know I won’t see you again
You – the little ray of sacrifice.

Teutonic iron pride is waiting for its victims,
And Poland stained with blood provides them beyond measure
You were such a victim, because you kept the love for Poland,
You lived for her, suffered, and gave your life for her.

 You gave example to us, the young, example, a thousands hearts you gained
You walked in the footsteps of the great Polish women, that more than the whole heart’s treasure
Loved Poland

 To us, the Polish scouts, this precious gift belongs,
And after the war we will report to the homeland with dignity,
The candle of the young hearts will light, the Germanic barbarity will turn to dust,
And the girl scouts songs will bring back the heroic name: of Kardaszewicz Ewa[25].

 After the war, with the efforts of the family, the bodies of mother and daughter were exhumed and laid at the municipal cemetery in Nowy Sącz. The graves of Maria and Ewa Kardaszewicz are located close to the graves of those who died together with them – Maria and Alina Stobiecki.

——————————————————————————————

[1] Kardaszewiczowa Maria [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walki o niepodległość Polski 1939–1945. Poległe i zmarłe w okresie okupacji niemieckiej, Warszawa, 1988, p. 177.

[2] Ibidem.

[3] Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie Oddział w Nowym Sączu (dalej ANKr O/NS), Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa w nowosądeckim, 31/559/38, Ewa Kardaszewicz – unknown author’s typescript, p. 77; see also: Kardaszewiczówna Ewa [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk o niepodległość, p. 177.

[4] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/38, Ewa Kardaszewicz, p. 77.

[5] Kardaszewiczówna Ewa [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk o niepodległość, p. 177.

[6] Słownik uczestniczek walki o niepodległość lists Piotra Skargi Street as the location of M. Kardaszewicz’s shop. Since the spring of 1941, this street has become a part of the closed Jewish ghetto. When the two ghettos were created, the non-Jewish residents and shopkeepers were forced to move. Janina Zagórzycka in the mentioned memories wrote that the address of the stop was Krakowska Street, which was then the name of the street near the castle, which became the northern border of the ghetto. Maria’s son, Jerzy Kardaszewicz, in his memoirs from 1966, wrote down the location of the store as Lwowska Street – over it in pencil it is written “Piotra Skargi 5 Str”. This second address is indicated in an anonymous note about Maria Kardaszewicz kept in ANKR O/NS under the same signature as Jerzy’s letter. Perhaps M. Kardaszewicz really did change the location of her store? There also arises a question about possible changes in street names. Cf. ANKr O/NS) Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa w nowosądeckim, ref. 31/559/33, Anonimowa notatka o Marii Kardaszewiczowej oraz List Jerzego Kardaszewicza z 27 marca 1966 r.

[7] Kardaszewiczowa Maria [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walki o niepodległość, p. 177.

[8] See: Władysława Lubasiowa, Światła obrazu i cienie, “Almanach Sądecki” 2000, № 1, p. 54 and others.

[9] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/33, List Jerzego Kardaszewicza z 27 marca 1966 r.

[10] Ibidem.

[11] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/34, Janina Zagórzycka, „Promyk” na ziemi sądeckiej, p. 2–3; cf. also: Kardaszewiczówna Ewa [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk o niepodległość, p. 177.

[12] Parallelly to the male-only Polish Scouting Organization, there existed the female Girl Guides Organization. The “Grey Ranks” code name originally referred only to the male organization, female teams used the code name “Związek Koniczyn” (“Clover Union”) or “Bądź gotów” (“Be Ready”). From 1943 it was customary to use the name Gray Ranks for both of the organizations. The Polish Scouting Organization and the Girl Guides Organization were established before the war as autonomous organizational units of the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association. In September 1938 the Girl Guides Organization isolated a separate service, the Girl Scout Emergency Service, which only accepted girls over 15 years of age, who would be trained in one of four services: Samaritan, communications, house economy, childcare. In March 1939 the Girl Guides Organization and the Girl Scout Emergency Service were both incorporated into the Female Military Training Organization. When the war broke out, the Girl Guides Main Headquarters operation was suspended, and the command of the Emergency Service took over. Cf.  Zofia Florczak, Organizacja Harcerek (OH) [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walki o niepodległość Polski 1939–1945, Warszawa 1988, pp. 508–509.

[13] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/34, Janina Zagórzycka, “Promyk” na ziemi sądeckiej, pp. 3–4; also: ref. 31/559/33, List Jerzego Kardaszewicza z 27 marca 1966 r.; See also: Otmianowska Zofia [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walki o niepodległość, p. 304.

[14] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/38, Ewa Kardaszewicz, pp. 77 & 79; Cf. also: Kardaszewiczówna Ewa [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walk o niepodległość, p. 177.

[15] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/38, Ewa Kardaszewicz, p. 77.

[16] Ibidem, pp. 77, 79.

[17] Both, Andrzej and Zofia, died at the hands of the Germans in 1944. Zofia was killed in a guerrilla battle close to Działoszyce near Krakow in August 1944. She was 20 years old at the time. Her brother Andrzej was arrested in Nowy Sącz and shot for undeground activity in Zbylitowska Góra on 28 June 1944. It was the same execution in which Jerzy Kardaszewicz is said to have died, cf.: Otmianowska Zofia [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walki o niepodległość, p. 304; Józef Bieniek, Droga wiodła przez mękę, “Almanach Sądecki” 1994, № 2 (7), p. 79.

[18] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/34, Janina Zagórzycka, “Promyk” na ziemi sądeckiej, pp. 3–4.

[19] This is a hypothesis of the author of the text.

[20] Cf. ANKR O/NS) Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa w nowosądeckim, ref. 31/559/33, Anonimowa notatka o Marii Kardaszewiczowej oraz List Jerzego Kardaszewicza z 27 marca 1966 r.

[21] W. Lubasiowa, op. cit., p. 44 and consecutive.

[22] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/38, Ewa Kardaszewicz, p. 79; Kardaszewiczówna Ewa [in:] Słownik uczestniczek walki o niepodległość, p.177; Józef Bieniek, op. cit. p. 79.

[23] Archival and online sources provide two dates: 27 and 28 April The exhumation protocols of 1945 indicate 27 April as the exact date, cf. ANKr O/NS, Sandecjana, 31/190/54, Protokoły ekshumacyjne Marii Stobieckiej i Aliny Stobieckiej, pp. 63, 65.

[24]ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/38, Ewa Kardaszewicz, pp. 79, 81, Ibidem, Związek Kombatantów Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, 31/558/713, Kilka sylwetek Kobiet bardziej zaangażowanych w Ruch Oporu na terenie województwa.

[25] ANKr O/NS, Materiały do dziejów harcerstwa, 31/559/34, Janina Zagórzycka, „Promyk” na ziemi sądeckiej, p. 5.