Sister Alfonsja became the director of an orphanage when she was 19, a year before war broke out in Poland. Once the war began, Sister Alfonsja took in Jewish children despite the fact that she had signed an affidavit with the Gestapo stating that she only housed Catholic children. While living in the Catholic orphanage, the Jewish children were also taught that if the Nazis came and asked them what they wanted to be when they grow up they should respond that they wish to be priests or nuns. When The Germans began to move out of Eastern Poland, Sister brought the 13 Jewish children that she was hiding to the Jewish Committee in Przemysl. In 1950, she left the convent and returned to her previous name, Eugenia Wasowka.
Edited by Stephanie Surach
