Zofia Kossak, an acclaimed writer and journalist, moved to Warsaw in 1939 in order to engage in resistance to the German occupiers. Starting in 1941 she ran the Catholic underground organization Front for the Rebirth of Poland (Front Odrodzenia Polski). In the summer of 1942, she circulated a flyer to mobilize a protest against the deportation of the Jews to the extermination camps. A short time later she founded a relief organization together with the socialist Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz which later led to the Polish underground organization Żegota (Council to Aid Jews). Although Kossak at time expressed antisemitic views, she condemned the mass murder of Jews. In 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. She was later interned in the Pawiak prison in Warsaw and sentenced to death. Through bribes, friends of hers managed to get her released in 1944.
After the war she emigrated to the UK because she feared repression by the new Communist government. In 1982 Kossak was honored by the Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.