A CARD FROM THE CALENDAR - MARIA PASZKOT
“I’ll do everything within my power” – Maria Paszkot said to her employers, the Zellners, who’d become more of a family to her by that time than simply bosses. “You must understand that should we be found out, you’d suffer the same consequences as us” – Berta told her honestly. Following her mother’s death, Maria started working for Berta and her husband, Michał, long before the war. They were her closest acquaintances, devoted and caring, the only family she had. She knew the danger, but that did nothing to hamper her eagerness to provide help. First, they built a hiding place in the attic, in their Kraków home on Kilińskiego Street, but it was not safe enough, as Germans occupied part of the house. Consequently, Maria took the Zellners to Warsaw, and then to Kobylec. She’d bring money and valuables to pay the farmers that hid them. Berta and Michał survived until the liberation, and the three of them lived together after the war.
