Rescuers of Jews

     After Nazi Germany occupied Lithuania and the persecution of Jews began, Vilnius Stefan Batory University professor Tadeusz Czeżowski, together with his wife Antonina and daughter Teresa, supported the Jews of the Vilnius Ghetto with food and medicine, and sheltered and rescued several Jewish families and individuals in their home.
     One of the most prominent representatives of the Lviv and Warsaw schools of Polish logic and philosophy, Tadeusz Czeżowski was born on July 26, 1889, in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. In 1907, Czeżowski studied philosophy, mathematics, and physics at Lviv University. From 1923, he worked as a professor of philosophy at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius. From 1933–1935 he was Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, from 1935–1937 Dean, and in 1938 Vice-Dean. In the 1930s, while living and teaching in Vilnius, Tadeusz Czeżowski strongly criticized the Numerus clausus principle (the quota restricting Jewish students’ admission to Stefan Batory University) and the antisemitic riots incited by the Polish National Democracy (Endekai) political movement.
     Officially, Professor Tadeusz Czeżowski ended his work at Stefan Batory University on December 15, 1939, when the university was closed. At that time, the Czeżowski family faced difficult circumstances. The professor supported his family by giving German lessons to Railway Directorate employees. To survive, the Czeżowski were forced to sell part of their family property.
     In June 1941, after Nazi Germany occupied Vilnius, the Czeżowski began helping Jews. One survivor, mathematics teacher Abraham Fessel, recalled: “On the very first day after the Germans occupied Vilnius, the professor appeared in my apartment and offered to move more valuable things to his place. From then on, he visited me almost every day, and usually, besides a kind word, he also brought food.” After the ghetto was established in Vilnius, the Czeżowski family visited their imprisoned acquaintances, bringing them food and medicine.
     Abraham Fessel, his wife Paulina, and their daughter Irena were imprisoned in the Small Ghetto. They managed to avoid several killing actions, but as the liquidation of the Small Ghetto approached, Tadeusz Czeżowski, concerned for the Fessel family’s fate, urged them to escape. He promised to provide them with temporary shelter in his apartment, and when Abraham Fessel did not want to part from his close friends, the Walk family, he invited them as well. Thus, in November 1941, eight people – three members of the Fessel family (Abraham, his wife Paulina, and daughter Irena) and five members of the Walk family (the mother, three daughters, and a fourteen-year-old grandson) – left the Small Ghetto, tore off their yellow stars, and came to the Czeżowski apartment, where they were housed in one of the rooms. The Czeżowski home was not a safe place to hide fugitives, as hostile tenants and neighbors lived nearby. Soon another family joined them – Chaim Epstein with his wife Feiga and their children Józef (18) and Regina (11). Later, Józef Epstein joined the armed resistance and was killed in late 1941 in what is now Belarus.
     After sheltering these Jewish families, Professor Czeżowski sought forged documents for them. With the help of Belarusian teacher Aleksander Szepko, the Jews were transferred to Antonina Czeżowska’s manor, located in present-day Belarus. Later, the Jewish woman Tamara Wolfson was also sent there.
     Throughout almost the entire German occupation, Zlata Kaczerginska (later Burgin) lived in the Czeżowski apartment, having arrived there by chance. Officially, the Jewish woman worked in their home as a maid and posed as an Armenian helping to raise teenage Teresa. In fact, it was Teresa who protected her ward, helping her avoid uncomfortable questions and situations.
     On September 16, 1943, Tadeusz Czeżowski was arrested as one of a hundred Polish hostages. However, after two weeks, the professor was released. Sadly, ten hostages, including university professors Kazimierz Pelczar (medicine) and Mieczysław Witold Gutkowski (law), were executed in Paneriai. After the war, the family moved to Toruń. Tadeusz Czeżowski continued teaching as a professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń until his retirement in 1960.
     In 1963, Tadeusz Czeżowski, together with his wife Antonina and their postwar-born daughter Eleonora (Teresa had died in 1952), visited Jerusalem and reunited with the Jews they had rescued. On April 16, 1963, Yad Vashem recognized Tadeusz, Antonina, and Teresa Czeżowski as Righteous Among the Nations.