When he honored the Oberlangen Girls—and never knew one was Jewish
The Oberlangen Girls at St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, 1946.
In 1946, Pope Pius XII prepared to honor a group of young Polish women who had become symbols of resistance during World War II.
They were known as the Oberlangen Girls—fighters in the…
She was nine years old when she joined the Polish Home Army, the youngest soldier in the entire resistance force. A Jewish child hiding under a false Polish Catholic identity, she chose to fight back against the Nazis who were murdering her people. Nine when she ran messages through sniper-infested streets during the Warsaw Uprising.…
In May 1945, the war in Europe ended. Nazi Germany surrendered. The death camps were liberated. For Jews who had survived in hiding, this should have meant freedom: the freedom to reclaim their names, their identities, their very selves.
But for eleven-year-old Edna Szurek, who had spent years disguised as Catholic orphan Stefcia Skołkowska,…
