Shortly after the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland in September 1939, the merchant Stanisław Chmielewski promised his partner Władysław Bergman that he would take care of Bergman’s Jewish relatives. Bergman had joined the Polish army and left the country to fight in western Europe against the German occupiers.
When the Warsaw Jews were forced to move to the ghetto in 1940, Chmielewski helped smuggle food and medicine into the ghetto. Starting in 1943, Chmielewski and his mother Stanisława hid Jews who escaped from the Warsaw ghetto in their home, including Bergman’s mother Sara and his sister Maryla Bergman. Chmielewski, who was gay, set up a support network in which other homosexuals also participated. They procured forged documents or arranged hiding places for those who fled the ghetto. Chmielewski’s market stand served as a meeting place for Jews and helpers. The network helped a total of twenty-four people. Chmielewski was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944, but released a short time later.
In 1983 he was honored by the Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.