A CARD FROM THE CALENDAR - FRANCESCA AND JOSEPH SOWA
On 1 September 1943, the Germans surrounded the Sowas house, broke the windows and brutally dragged everyone living there to the courtyard. For nearly two years the Sowas had been hiding six Jews in a small village of Wierzchowiska near Częstochowa. They prepared a hiding place in their outbuildings, not quite 4 square metres large. Now Józef, his pregnant wife Franciszka, and their five children, defenceless and helpless, stood by the barn door, awaiting their sentence. There was only one penalty for hiding Jews: death. The Sowas were forcibly stripped, brutally beaten, and shot dead together with the Jews from the hiding place, all in plain view of their children. The five siblings were then taken to Germany.
