Pustelnik (Marki)

Nothing left behind

The widow Marianna Banaszek lived with her three children in Pustelnik (today part of Marki). Her house became a shelter for many Jews during World War II. Among them were escapees from the Warsaw Ghetto, Rubin and Perla Feldszuh with their daughter Josima. In autumn 1943, Marianna was warned that the Germans were planning to search her home, and so the Jews hiding there were forced to leave that very night.

When the German gendarmes entered the house, they found nothing more than an empty hiding space beneath a cupboard. Marianna was not home at the time, so the Germans took her children, Stanisława and Władysław, transported them to Marki and shot them near a local brickyard. Then they waited for Marianna to come home from church and murdered her as well. Wiktoria, the last of the Banaszek children, fled when she discovered her mother’s body upon return from work. Her later fate remains unknown. No photographs of this family – neither of Marianna nor of her children – were ever recovered.