MATYLDA GETTER (1870 TO 1968)

“I’m saving a human being who’s asking for help”

- Matylda Getter

Unit 1012 will honor and always remember Matylda, every year on February 15, as it is the same date as Irena Sendler’s birthday. We will remember and honor her for saving 250 to 550 of Jewish children during the Holocaust and she rightfully deserves to be recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations.

Her story should be an inspiration for us to support victims’ rights and defend the use of the death penalty by speaking out against evil and saving lives. We also learn to take a Christian approach in doing the right thing by helping those who suffer injustice. We will post information about her from Wikipedia and other links.

Poles Who Saved the Jews: Irena Sendlerowa, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Sister Matylda Getter coin, 20 zl, silver, reverse

Matylda Getter (1870–1968) was a Polish Catholic nun, mother provincial of CSFFM (lat. Congregatio Sororum Franciscalium Familiae Mariae) - Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary in Warsaw and social worker in pre-war Poland. In German-occupied Warsaw during World War II she cooperated with the famous Irena Sendler and the Żegota resistance organization in saving the lives of hundreds of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto. She was recognized as one of Polish Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem organization  for her rescue activities.

Biography

She started social work before World War II and she received a number of the highest national distinctions in honor of her achievements in her educational and social work. She had founded over twenty education and care facilities for children in Anin, Białołęka, Chotomów, Międzylesie, Płudy, Sejny, Wilno and others.

Activity during World War II

“I’m saving a human being who’s asking for help” - Matylda Getter

From beginning of the war the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary, “in the spirit of Christian love and Franciscan joy,” brought aid to those in need, both civilians and members of the Polish underground. Sisters arranged for them work, granted shelter and providing them false documents. During the Warsaw Uprising In the provincial house at Hoża St. 53 in Warsaw, the sisters ran a paramedical station and a soup kitchen, turned into a hospital.

Mother Matylda Getter declared that she would take in every Jewish child she could. During the occupation, the Order's Sisters rescued between 250-550 Jewish children from the ghetto. Mother Matylda risked her life and the lives of her Sisters by taking the children into her orphanages and hiring adults to work with them, caring for the children in facilities scattered around Poland. As the superior of the Warsaw Province of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary, she took on the responsibility of obtaining birth certificates for the children and hiding them in the order’s educational institutions. She explained these actions with the words:

“you could not refuse to help children facing certain death.” - Matylda Getter