The widow Franciszka Lewicka lived with her daughter Janina in the poor one-room house in Ujkowice near Przemyśl. During the German occupation Franciszka and Janina Lewicka sheltered two Jewish girls, peers of Janina: Anna Shapiro (Stark) and Gina Kosmirska. Jewish women were hidden in the masked cellar. They were treated by Franciszka as own daughters, they also quickly became friends with Janina. The girls happily survived the war and after some years they arrived to Israel. A few other Jewish families passed through the house of Franciszka and Janina Lewicka but we do not know their names. The attitude presented by the mother and daughter during the German terror is best expressed by Janina’s words written after the war:
To survive one hungry war day it was a struggle – the struggle for life and human dignity. [The decision to adopt the girls] cost us a lot. Many times we themselves had nothing to eat. But it did not matter. The man was important.
On Apr. 12, 1992 Franciszka Lewicka and Janina Lewicka-Kot were awarded the medal of the “Righteous Among the Nations”.