Tribute from Mary Skinner, Filmmaker, Irena Sendler: In the Name of their Mothers
I first got to know Magda in 2005 when I was searching for women who had participated with Irena Sendler in the underground conspiracy to save Jewish children during WWII. She shared one thrilling wartime story after another with me, allowing me to film her in her Warsaw apartment for almost five hours.
One tale was of a little Jewish boy she was told to take to the river for a swim and a “suntan.” He had just been smuggled out of the ghetto and was pale. He needed a healthier appearance to help disguise him as a Polish child. But when Magda tried to undress him, he resisted.
“My mother told me not to,” the boy told her.
“I know, angel,” Magda told him, “you don’t want anyone to know you’re a Jew? You’re afraid the Germans are after you? Well, they are after me too. And they’re not going to get us! So come, let’s go for a swim together.”
And with that the child trusted her implicitly.
Magda told me many stories like this one, about her life in Canada, and about coming back to Poland for her “third act.” It seemed that in each phase of her life she looked for where she was needed most, and then gave of herself completely. When she was well into her 70s, despite the bad leg that had troubled her since the war, she began working with autistic and emotionally disturbed children. I was fortunate to observe her with them at her center one day.
I wanted to know more about the children. “Are they Autistic? Or do they have Asperger’s Syndrome? Or are they Bi-Polar? Or Learning Disabled?” I questioned her.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t care. We don’t label them. Labels are for jars of marmalade.”
At the center, it was a “free play” day. Some children played with beans. Others crawled around in tented tubes made of brightly colored fabric. All the while, adults and aides watched over them, paying full attention to each and every child. A feisty little girl proudly swept the floor with a big broom. At the sight of us, she picked up a piece of dusty tape from the floor, affixed it to Magda’s sweater, and then ran away.
“Why thank you my little witch,” Magda exclaimed with great delight. “You see that?” she told me. “A few months ago that little girl sat the whole time in a corner and hardly moved.”
Magda wore the piece of tape on her sweater like a medal for the rest of the day.
“What brought about the change?” I asked.
“We never judged her. We never forced her to play. We never told her to do this or that. We simply stayed by her side and let her know she was always seen. We were present for her.”
“And this technique, how did you come up with it?” I asked.
“There are things you study in books and in school,” she told me. “But it takes years to learn to be naïve.”
And it occurred to me that Magda’s true gift was her remarkable way of being present for others. She had transformed that little girl, just as she had the frightened Jewish boy years ago in wartime Warsaw.
The Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture mourns the loss of Magda Grodzka-Gużkowska, Righteous Among the Nations. Ms. Grodzka-Gużkowska passed away on January 6, the day before her 90th birthday. In 2011, the Taube Foundation presented her with the annual Irena Sendler Memorial Award at the Nożyk Synagogue in Warsaw for her involvement in rescuing Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.
Magdalena (Magda) Grodzka-Gużkowska, née Rusinek, was fifteen years old when she joined Warsaw’s anti-Nazi underground in 1943. Working secretly with a network of other young Poles led by social worker Irena Sendler, she began assisting with the rescue of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. One child she saved was five year old Wlodzio Berg. His parents managed to remove him from the Ghetto and bring him to an elderly Polish couple. When someone denounced the couple, Ms. Grodzka-Gużkowska moved him to an empty apartment and smuggled food to him every day, as well as crayons for drawing. Eventually he was brought to a convent in Otwock and renamed William Donat. After the war young William was reunited with his parents, who had survived several concentration camps. They moved to New York City, where William grew up and had a successful career in book publishing. When William discovered that his rescuer was still alive, he petitioned Yad Vashem to recognize Magda Grodzka-Gużkowska as a Righteous Among the Nations, which it did in 2009.
Magda Grodzka-Gużkowska discovered late in life that she herself is Jewish, and became a beloved member of Warsaw’s Jewish community. In her Polish memoir, Lucky, she wrote: “I know that life is worth living if you help at least one family, one child. I have had that joy, that luck.”
She was buried on Thursday, January 9, 2014, in the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery with the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Rabbi Michael Schudrich, and Jewish community members in attendance.
May her life and memory be a blessing and an inspiration.
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The Irena Sendler Memorial Award is granted annually to Polish citizens who have worked to preserve Jewish heritage and foster Jewish cultural renewal in Poland. It was established in 2008 by Tad Taube and the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture to commemorate Irena Sendler, who passed away on May 12 of that year at age ninety-eight. Declared a Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Yad Vashem, Irena Sendler rescued hundreds of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, refusing to reveal their identities even when arrested by the Nazis.
Nominations for the Irena Sendler Memorial Award are reviewed by a panel made up of Taube Foundation advisory board members and leaders of the Jewish community in Poland. nagrodairenysendlerowej.pl
