Pedagogical comment to the RAN workshops – the story of Gertruda Babilińska

The story of Gertruda Babilińska represents a fragment in the history of the rescue of Jews by gentiles in which personal attachment, together with the Christian faith, appear as the motivating forces behind the decision of the rescuer.
Babilińska's choice to take care of the Jewish boy was made in the context of her previous commitment to her position as the boy's nanny. Her employment with the Stolovitzky family, for whom she worked before the war, is an example of common Polish-Jewish relations.  But the intimate relationship she developed with the family, and her commitment to the Stolovitzkys during the war, was not as common as work relationships between Poles and Jews before the war, even though there were more maids like her who helped their previous Jewish employers.

It should be explained to the students that the pre-war financial status of the Stolovitzky family was not common in Jewish families in Poland. Most Jewish families were poor and many relied on charity. Also, about 80 % of the Jews in Poland lived in Jewish neighborhoods and kept Jewish traditions, in contrast to the Stolovitzkys who represented a minority assimilated to the Polish upper middle class.
The pre-war economic status of the Stolovitzkys, and their cultural profile, sharpens the misery in which the family found itself during the war when they shared the fate of all the Jews persecuted by the Nazis.
It also brings to the front the radical shift in the relation between them and Gertruda. Before the war, Gertruda was Stolovitzky's employee and they were her benefactors, while during the war, especially in Vilnius, she became Mrs. Stolovitzky's and her son's breadwinner and eventually, Michael's sole caregiver. The case shows that the brave deeds of rescuing Jews were undertaken by ordinary citizens, who often lacked their own financial means or did not belong to a social or economic elite. Yet, they decided to take the risk and act against the Nazi policies. Once Gertruda made the decision to save Michael, she kept risking discovery every day until the war ended. The story about Michael getting sick and Gertruda looking for a Jewish doctor inside the ghetto shows that she could not take a step without considering the danger. Yet, without having any help from outside, Gertruda lived through the war, taking care of the Jewish boy and did not abandon him.
Gertruda's story is particularly noteworthy, as her commitment to the rescued child continued also after the war ended. She never established a family of her own but devoted her life to raising Michael, in fulfillment of his mother's wishes, in the Jewish milieu  of [British Mandatory] Palestine/ Israel. She loved him as her own child.