The search for the Kutiza family, who hid my family during the Holocaust • Eran Morils

In 2000, at a family gathering, I heard for the first time the amazing story of survival of my family in Poland, during the Holocaust. More precisely - I became aware of the very existence of a story, and I heard parts of it, which at the time could not be connected to each other (chronologically), and certainly not to get answers to countless questions that were asked.

The numbers were my father and aunt. To Didem - we were late to ask... their father died eight years before, and "he was the only one who could answer". Both of them remembered quite a bit of their origins, but apart from a single name of one of the families with whom they were hiding, they did not remember the names of other people or the names of the villages where everything happened.

My grandfather, Yosef, who was a cattle dealer, was born and raised in a single Jewish family in a small village, not far from the town of Proszowice, which is located about twenty-five kilometers northeast of Krakow. He had many friends in the area (Gentiles, of course), including well-to-do friars, with whom he maintained long-term trading relationships. .

In 1932 he married Fromma, and at her request they moved to Proshowitz. Until the outbreak of WWII, the family lived comfortably. In 2 my aunt (Baronia) was born and in 1934 my father (Moniak). In August 1938, the Jewish residents of the town were deported. Most of them were sent to the extermination camp in Lezcz, to their death.

My grandparents and their two children were among the few Jews of the named town who had the courage to try to escape from it on the eve of the deportation. They spent several weeks in a nearby forest, under the open sky. My grandmother suffered from acute pneumonia, which in the absence of a doctor and medicine - led to her death.

Move to the village

Rumors about a second and final expulsion of Jews from all the surrounding settlements caused my grandfather to leave with his two children to a friend's house in a village near the town, where the three lived in the attic. Later they were forced to leave, found shelter in an attic in another village, and at the end of a few months they left immediately because they were accidentally exposed to unwanted eyes. After many nights in which we had mostly barns and barns, we "settled" in a hole dug for them inside a barn, next to a house in Lanfall passing through another village.
This pit was joined by six other family members. Nine people stayed there for over a year.

My grandfather was their only interface with the outside world, and occasionally went on night forays into nearby villages, to purchase or receive food. During one of his forays, he fell into the hands of armed AK (Polish underground) men who intended to execute him, and escaped by the skin of his teeth.

Life in hiding brought them many upheavals and challenges that required creative solutions, along with the help of brave friends, and more than a little luck (several times). Almost all the Jews who tried to hide in the villages in this area did not survive.

Due to the brevity of the story here, I have only told the little that is necessary as background for the search for the Kutiza family.

The story in its entirety is presented in the book "Lemata Mafra" which was published a little over a year ago, and is the result of a "journey" following it, which lasted about twenty years.

Since that family gathering that illuminated and awakened the fascinating story, I have been looking for every detail that could connect to their story, complete missing parts, and help locate the hiding places. It did not require a significant investment of time, because there was almost no relevant information (not even in museums and archives, including "Yad Vashem" where I pinned my hopes).

My aunt didn't remember any names at all (neither villages nor people...). The only name my father remembered was the last name "Kotiza". They also knew how to say that this was the first family they hid with.

During the first days of his stay with the Kutiza family, my grandfather allowed my father to leave the attic where they were staying every day, to play for several hours outside the house with the two children of the host family, but the condition for this was that he memorized his new name:

My father's original name is "Monyak", and my grandfather instructed him (aged four) that if someone asks for his name, he should answer "Manyak Kutiza" (meaning - omit the letter V from his first name), as if he were the brother of his fellow players. This memorization, as a "ticket" to get out of the dark attic, resulted in this name being etched in his memory.

After a few weeks in Kotiza's attic, the Morrils family adjusted to the new "routine".

The relative peace was broken when SS men Germans began to appear in the villages on surprise patrols, due to whistle-blowing by the Polish villagers about the neighbors hiding Jews. The feeling of fear intensified and spread throughout the area. No one could be trusted anymore, not even neighbors and friends.

All this had a great effect on Mrs. Kutiza, who began to show signs of distress. More than once she dreamed at night that Germans discovered their guests in the attic, and shot them and her own children.
Mr. Kutiza, who feared that his wife's behavior would attract attention and suspicion, discussed it with Yosef, my grandfather.

Two events filled the Saa, and made Mr. Kutiza ask Yosef to leave

From the book "Below Mefra":

One morning, when Moniak was outside the house, as usual, engrossed in the game, he suddenly heard Kutiza calling him "Come to me, quickly". He looked at his two play partners, debating whether to comply. This delay was too long for Kutiza's taste, who measured the distance between them with quick steps, grabbed the boy's wrist, and repeated "Come. Quickly."

Something in the tone of his voice made Moniak understand the urgency. He ran to the side of the man with an unexplained donkey, who walked quickly towards the house without letting go of his hand. When they reached the door, Kutiza turned and called to his children, "Come in the house."

Without delay, he approached the staircase to the attic with the boy and at once swung him upwards, holding his waist. Muniak felt another pair of arms grab him and pull him out of Kutiza's hands. His father lowered him from his hands to the floor of the attic, and quickly led him to the narrow niche at the end of the attic, where the roof almost touches the floor. Kutiza returned to the door of the house, made sure his children entered, and locked it.

Brunia, who was already lying there, motioned for him to shut up and quickly turned her gaze back outside. Muniak quickly lay down, pressed his cheek to the floor, his head almost touching his sister's head and facing the yard, curiosity and fear mixed in him. Joseph hurried to push bundles of straw towards them until they could not be seen from the top of the stairs. almost covered them completely. He then stretched himself further down the same alcove, shifting stacks of straw so that he too would be hidden.  

Through the slits, the three saw a group of soldiers carrying machine guns entering with quick steps the threshing floor of the house next door. The Germans stuck their machine guns repeatedly into stacks of straw bales, apparently in an attempt to find people they thought were hiding there. The terrified Moniac and Brunia scurried into their hiding place. The sight of the uniformed men wearing high boots and wearing helmets, resolutely engaged in manhunting, was very tangible and close to throwing a stone.
After long minutes of frantic searching, they left as they had come, without finding what they were looking for.

The next day, Kutiza told Yosef that Germans in uniform searched other houses in the village, captured two Jews who were hiding, shot them on the spot and then also all the members of the family that provided them shelter. Kutiza was torn between his desire to continue to Arham and the realization that permeated him that he was unable to guarantee their safety, in the shadow of the fear of a hasty act by his wife, overwhelmed by her fears.

A day later, Kutiza asked Joseph to find another hiding place for him and his children, and the three left.

I assumed that the sought-after Kutiza family lived in a village within walking distance of Proshowitz, because my aunt said they got there on foot. That is - a distance that a four-year-old child can walk. During years of searching on the net, I could not find a Kutiza family that was close enough to the town of Proshowitz. The foreign spelling of the name was unknown to me, and I tried many options, but to no avail.

More than once I contacted people named Kutiza on "Facebook", but I did not receive a response. Not very surprising.

In 2016, my father and I flew to Poland, to visit Proszowice (his hometown) and the surrounding villages, hoping to find people and places related to the story. A previous visit, six years before, did not advance us at all in locating the families of the hiders.

When meeting the daughter of a close friend of my grandfather's, luck seemed to be on our side: I asked my father to ask if she knew the name "Kotyza" (I don't speak Polish).

By God, even before he could formulate a question, her face lit up and she began to answer fluently.
"Cutiza are her family members," father translated. Even for this moment alone it would be worth flying to Poland... We are about to meet the descendants of the family we have been looking for years, I thought, maybe we can even visit the attic where they were hiding!

She said that the Kutiza family lives in the village of Klimontov, which is about four kilometers north of Prosovitz, which agreed with the assumption that the requested village was within walking distance of the town.
She added that her sister, Anna, also lives in Klimontov, and can give us all the details about the Kutiza family. The visit to Anna coincides with the next morning.
Full of hopes and excitement we arrived at Anna's house.

After listening with great interest, she said that the Kutiza family house is not far from her house, but no one lives there anymore. "We would be happy to see him from the outside as well," I asked father to translate.
Anna looked hesitant. She said she wasn't sure - that the house might have been destroyed...
They continued to talk, but no progress was evident.

"She says there were several Kutiza families here. Maybe six or eight, and that she can't tell which of them she is wanted," my father explained to me. At my request, Dad added in her ear every detail that I thought could refer to the family we were looking for ("There were rabbits in the yard", "There were two children - a boy and a girl, about your age"). Zero, Anna "locked". It was clear to us that earlier she was referring to a certain house, when she suggested that we go see it, but for some reason she went back and insisted that it was impossible to know which of the families it was about.
The depression was huge, as expected.

A breakthrough was recorded in September 2020:

I contacted someone named Justina Kutiza on "Facebook", who even replied. It was not easy to convince her that the story was true, that it was not a hoax or a scam. She said that her grandfather, who was more than ninety years old at the time, lived in Klimontov for many years. Even during the Holocaust.

Her grandfather said that two Kutiza families lived in Klimontov, on their branches. He also remembered that his uncle (his father's brother) and his wife were arrested by the Nazis on charges of aiding or hiding Jews, and never returned. Their neighbors tipped them off. Confirmed the couple had children, but could not remember how many. According to him, their home in Klimontov was renovated and took on a completely different look.

Justina put me in touch with Kamil Kutiza, who is not a member of her family, who also lives in Klimontov. Kamil wrote to me that his family indeed hid a Jewish family during the aforementioned period, but he himself does not know much about this matter, and that he has no relatives left who know what happened then. He did not know how many people were in the hidden family, but other details he remembered raised hopes.

According to him, the hiders were the couple Vladislav and Helena Kutiza. They have two children, a son and a daughter... the son was Kamil's paternal grandfather. My questions about the house of Vladislav and Helena led to the surprising discovery that Kamil himself lives in the house in question, and yes - it has an attic!

I asked him to photograph the house from the outside as well as the attic and the stairs leading to it.
Looking at the photos, my father confirmed that this is the place! This is the attic and the house where they hid more than eighty years ago!

However, father claimed that there was no window in the attic when they were hiding there. Camille consults his mother, and she replies that the window is relatively new. With this the doubts disappeared. This is indeed the desired house.
A house that may lack external uniqueness (see photo), but it still stands, a silent testimony to the heroism that the passing of time and the requested secrecy almost succeeded in protesting.

I will only add that we also managed to locate the family that "hosted" my family in the pit, and even the location of the pit! The details of the events and information about the two families were given to "Yad Vashem" with a request to recognize the hiders as "followers of the nations of the world".