The fate of Jewish women who stayed on the Aryan side while acting in the Jewish underground is not a subject often discussed. We do not hear about them because there are no witnesses to talk about their sacrifice. However, the memory of Lea Koziebrodzka has survived. During the occupation, she was a courier, travelling throughout occupied Poland, enabling contact between ghettos.

Koziebrodzka was born in Pruszków. She graduated from the Yehudiya Gymnasium in Warsaw, and then began to study Romanist studies at the University of Warsaw. While studying, she belonged to the Youth Organisation of the Workers’ University Society and the organisation “Frajhajt”.

During the war she was a member of Dror and He-Chaluc movements. Because of her good looks and perfect knowledge of the Polish language, under the adopted name Krystyna Kosowska she was a liaison officer sent from the Warsaw Ghetto to Białystok, Grodno Vilnius and Lublin. She transported documents and weapons, thus putting her life at risk. She also escorted members of various Jewish organisations from town to town.  She was called Lonka.

Her merits for the resistance of the Jews under the German occupation are indisputable. Among other things, she took part in the formation of the self-defence of the Vilnius Ghetto. After the war, Antek Cukierman, a legend of the Jewish Combat Organisation who, with the appearance of a Polish nobleman, lived freely on the Aryan side during the war, emphasised her heroic commitment. During her courier service, she also showed her talents and improvised. She knew English, French, Ukrainian and Belorussian perfectly, in addition to German.

Unfortunately, in June 1942, she was arrested by the Germans while crossing the border of the General Government. This took place in Małkinia Górna, at the border between it and the Bialystok District. In her bag there were four hand grenades and an underground press. She was arrested together with another courier Bronisława Limanowska, or Bella Chazan, who was carrying out the same tasks as Koziebrodzka in the Vilnius Ghetto.

The Germans did not recognise Lonka as Jewish, so she was taken to Warsaw’s Pawiak prison. She was interrogated there and on 12 November 1942 she was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was given the camp number 24453. There, she died of typhus on 18 March 1943. Her fellow courier, who was also arrested at the border, Bella Chazan, survived the war.

One of her fellow prisoners remembered the last days of Koziebrodzka’s life: “From my bunk I could see her slowly fading away. She was not taken care of at all. She was swollen and could not eat anything. She asked for her soup to be given to me…”.