Maria Aniela Fedecka (1904,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

- 21 December 1977,

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

social worker, member of

Workers' Defence Committee The Workers' Defense Committee ( pl, Komitet Obrony Robotników , KOR) was a Polish civil society group that was established to give aid to prisoners and their families after the June 1976 protests and ensuing government crackdown. KOR was an examp ...

. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

she was an activist in the

Polish Underground The Polish Underground State ( pl, Polskie Państwo Podziemne, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Gover ...

and Polish anti-Holocaust resistance in

Wilno Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

(now Vilnius, Lithuania). During

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

she helped save many Jewish children as well as the poverty-stricken peasants of Lebioda, her husband's hometown situated near

Lida Lida ( be, Лі́да ; russian: Ли́да ; lt, Lyda; lv, Ļida; pl, Lida ; yi, לידע, Lyde) is a city 168 km (104 mi) west of Minsk in western Belarus in Grodno Region. Etymology The name ''Lida'' arises from its Lithuani ...

(now in

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...

). In 1987, Maria Fedecka was honoured by Yad Vashem as

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...

for the help she had brought to Jewish children and their families. After the war, in 1945, Fedecka took part in the " repatriation action" (the return to

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

of Poles who did not want to remain in the territories annexed by the Soviet Union). She also came to the aid of those young people who were threatened with prison and deportations to "

gulags The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

" in the USSR. In PRL she lived mainly in

Sopot Sopot is a seaside resort city in Pomerelia on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea in northern Poland, with a population of approximately 40,000. It is located in Pomeranian Voivodeship, and has the status of the county, being the smallest city ...

(near

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

in Poland). In 1947 she took the initiative of creating, with Zdzisław Grabski and Michał Pankiewicz, the League for the Struggle Against Racism quickly dismantled by authorities for political reasons. The League was composed of a small number of Polish intellectuals, aware of the moral threat for the country's renewal in the aftermath of Kielce and other anti-semitic incidents. In the 1970s Fedecka was active in the anti-communist opposition in

People's Republic of Poland The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million nea ...

Bibliography

*Jędrychowska Anna - “Zygzakiem i po prostu”, (In zigzag and straight ahead ), Czytelnik,1965, p. 320-321 and 338-339. *Kac Daniel - “Wilno Jerozolimą było - Rzecz o Abrahamie Sutzkeverze” (When Wilno was Jerusalem – in praise of Abraham Sutskever) Fundacja Pogranicze,16-500-Sejny 2003, , p. 98-99 and 144-145. *Wawer Pola - “Poza gettem i obozem”, (Outside the ghetto and the camp). Wydawnictwo Myśl, Warszawa 1993, , p. 96-97. *Wroński Stanislaw & Zwolakowa Maria, “Polacy i Zydzi, 1939-1945” (Poles and Jews, 1939-1945). Ksiązka i Wiedza, Warszawa 1971, p. 320. *“The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, Poland.” Volume editors: Sara Bender and Shmuel Krakowski. Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 2004, p. 212.

External sources

Website devoted to life of Maria Fedecka (pl), (de), (en)
at

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Fedecka, Maria Women in World War II Polish Righteous Among the Nations Catholic Righteous Among the Nations Polish resistance members of World War II 1904 births 1977 deaths Women in European warfare Polish female soldiers Polish soldiers Members of the Workers' Defence Committee 20th-century Polish women Polish women in World War II resistance