The Nasierowski family looked for various ways to help the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. This Polish family did not give in, despite the blackmail.

At 9 Kaliska Street in Warsaw, Leon Nasierowski ran a large pharmaceutical company, employing more than 100 people before World War II. Leon lived in this building with his wife, Janina, and son Zdzisław. On Dzielna Street, there was a furrier’s workshop of the Jew Samuel Drążek. Janina used his services before the Second World War.

In October 1940, the Germans created the Warsaw Ghetto. They crowded a huge number of Jews into a small space. In 1941, there were almost 450,000 Jews there. The Drążek family was also locked within the ghetto. From the beginning, the Nasierowski family tried to help them in every possible way – including providing food and medicine.

They got a child out of the ghetto 

In May 1941, the Polish family obtained false documents for the Drążek family, which certified that they were not Jews. However, they also had to transport them to the so-called “Aryan side”. The Nasierowskis first organised an action to get out the Jews’ recently born daughter, Shulamit. They ordered office supplies from a company located in the ghetto and the girl was placed among the goods. She was then taken to Pruszków to their friends’ family.

They left the ghetto in coats from the Nasierowskis

The Nasierowskis also managed to get Samuel and his wife, Matla, out. When it came to a meeting between them in the Leszno courts, the Jews were given the cloakroom tokens for the Nasierowskis’ coats. The Drążeks dressed in them and left in the direction of Ogrodowa Street outside the ghetto. They then drove to a villa in Józefów near Otwock, which the Nasierowskis had rented for them. Hiding under false names, the Jews lived there and worked as caretakers of the house.

They maintained contact after the war

They all survived the war, although it did not probable. The Nasierowski family were blackmailed because they were hiding a Jewish child. They also took part in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Janina was sent to forced labour in Germany and Leon to the German camp in Auschwitz.

The Drążeks left Poland in 1946, first to Belgium and then, in 1952, to Canada. The families kept in touch. Thanks to the Drążeks’ testimony, Leon, Janina and Zdzisław Nasierowski were honoured by Yad Vashem with the medal “Righteous Among the Nations” on 22 August 1993.