Joanna Senior Tybora collection

Edward Senior (b. June 20, 1901) was the son of Henryk Senior (d. 1938), a well-known director of many chemical factories in Poland. Edward’s mother, Anna Ita Rubinstein Senior and his sister Dora lived in Warsaw. Edward studied architecture in Paris, France, where he met Josette Szwarz, a Catholic woman from Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. Josette studied French. In 1935 Edward won an architectural competition, which awarded him a contract to go to Moscow. Josette joined him there and the two married in Moscow in 1935. Their only daughter, Joanna (Johanna), was born there on December 12, 1936. The couple returned to Warsaw in 1938.

In September 1939 Edward responded to the order issued by the Polish authorities and left Warsaw. He reached Lvov, but after the Soviets took over this city, he decided to return to Warsaw and rejoin his family. As he crossed the Soviet-German border, he found himself marching in a military column and was taken as a prisoner of war. Edward was imprisoned in Stalag XXA, near Thorn (Torun). In 1941 he was transferred to Stutthof concentration camp and executed shortly after his arrival. Josette received a telegram notifying her that her husband died in Stutthof of a heart attack. Witnesses, who survived the camp, claimed otherwise.

In October 1940 Josette, Joanna, Anna, and Dora moved into the Warsaw ghetto where they lived on Elektoralna Street. After a few months, Josette was determined to leave the ghetto and to save her family. She arranged for a new birth certificate for Joanna and smuggled her out of the ghetto. Joanna spent the next three years with different families close to Warsaw, as her mother visited her every week, posing as her aunt. Josette urged Anna and Dora to flee the ghetto, but she refused and in 1942 Anna committed suicide. Dora was last seen at the Umschlagplatz in the summer of 1942. Josette continued to live in her pre-war apartment in Saska Kepa, on the west side of Wisla River. She was instrumental in hiding many Warsaw Jews, who managed to escape the ghetto. Josette cooperated with Staszek Antopolski (now: Moshe Antopolski residing in Israel) and helped find safe havens for those in hiding. In 1988 Jozefa Josette Senior was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Josette and Joanna were liberated in July 1944. After the war, Josette earned a living by tutoring French and German. She died in 1980. Joanna graduated from university and has a son, Pawel Tybora (b. 1974).