They called her „angelic auntie Marysia”…
She had 6 siblings, four sisters and two brothers. Her oldest sister Stefania married Lucjan Wasilewski, Zofia married Jan Szczepan Radwański, Anna died in infancy, and Wiktoria married Stanisław Józef Rogowski. Her brother Bronisław remained unmarried, while Edward married Eleonora Wiśniewska. Maria’s parents ran a horticulture farm on the city outskirts. Her father Konstanty was an experienced horticulturist. As a young man he worked for Ignatiy Łojko – the founder of the Ostrów city park.
At the end of the 19th century he built a small brick house surrounded by agricultural buildings and started a farm. It included an orchard and a garden that produced various vegetables. The main pride of the Ostrowski family however were the flowers – including beautiful yellow Marechal Niel roses sold to Warsaw. From memoirs of those living in Ostrów, it was the most beautiful garden in town. “Next to it – the home of the big lumber merchant, partner in his father-in-law’s sawmill– Josef Fromowicz. Opposite on the right-hand side was the county office and next to it a garden – one of the most beautiful places in town. Only the garden separated the 2 roads: the one on the right, the Warszawska Highway, via Wyszków and Radzymin. (…) On the left – the highway to Brok” Arie (Lejb) Margolis, A Walk Through the City, in “Memorial Book of the Community of Ostrow-Mazowiecka”.
Maria completed her holy communion, primary school and secondary school education while in Ostrów Mazowiecka. In 1925 after completing a two-year methodology-pedagogy course in Łomża she left for the Eastern Borderlands, where her older sister Wiktoria lived in Volkovysk with her husband Stanisław Rogowski and children Halina and Bogusław. Stanisław was a teacher and the School Inspector for the Volkovysk and Lida regions and the Orlov Governorate and as such helped Maria find work. She first taught in a small public primary school, located in a rented house in Bieniakonie, Novogrudok District, later moving to the village of Krupa near Lida. There she became a teacher at a 7-class primary school. Her children’ accounts suggest that she welcomed the change, as Lida was a larger city than Bieniakonie.
Maria moved to the estate of her friends, the Szukiewicz family. In 1929, as she later said, during “social work” she met Witold Pilecki – the owner of the Sukurcze estate located nearby. Witold helped her prepare school decorations and came to Maria’s hosts for dance evenings organised by them. He tried very hard to win her sympathy. There is a story that when he rode his horse past her window, he threw bouquets of his favourite flowers into the room. At this point, it is difficult to determine what kind of flowers they were. In some accounts it is elderflower, in others it is jasmine. Andrzej Pilecki recalls that white dahlias were his mother’s favourite flowers, while Zofia Pilecka maintains they were lilies of the valley. Two years later Maria and Witold got married. On 7 April 1931 in the Ostrów Mazowiecka church the weddings of three close friends took place: Maria Ostrowska to Witold Pilecki, Maria Matuszewicz to Karol Piłat, and Maria Elert to Antoni Kozłowski. There was no wedding reception, as Maria’s father Konstanty Ostrowski passed away barely three months before, and the newlyweds returned to Sukurcze after the ceremony. Two of the couple’s most beautiful photographs were taken that day, in the garden of 4 Warszawska Street. Andrzej was born on 16 January 1932, and, a year later, Zofia was born. Following Zofia’s birth Maria’s health worsened and she had to go to a sanatorium for treatment. Witold remained to care for their young children with the help of his mother Ludwika Pilecka. She was however an older woman and her ability to help was limited. The marriage of the Pilecki couple was harmonious and happy.
The children reminisce that their parents loved each other greatly, that Witold liked surprising Maria and making her smile. He tried to make each day special. Maria worked as a teacher, was active in the local rural housewives association and involved herself in her students extracurriculars, while he took care of the farm and children. They visited Ostrów Mazowiecka during holidays and school vacations. The summer of 1939 was also spent by Maria and the children in her hometown. After the mobilisation of troops was announced at the end of August she immediately made her way home to Sukurcze, where she met her husband leaving for the front lines. After 17 September Maria, as the wife of an officer, found herself in danger. Forewarned of planned deportations east by a student that had joined the Soviets, she hid at the school in Krupa. From there she escaped to Volkovysk and with her older sister Wiktoria Rogowska and Wiktoria’s sixteen year old daughter Halina (born 1924). Together, two sisters and three children, attempted to escape to the German-occupied Ostrów Mazowiecka. During their first attempt they were arrested by the NKVD. Maria was able to bribe her family’s way out – she even gave the Soviets her wedding ring. During their second attempt they were able to get past the “green border” near Małkinia. They only arrived in Ostrów in April. Maria began working at the bookstore run by her sister Zofia after the arrest of her husband Jan Szczepan Radwański. Help at the bookstore involved travelling to Warsaw to purchase stationary. She was able to see Witold during those trips.
In a radio recording from the early 90s, Maria recalls that before the war she was very sickly, while the need to “grab life by the shoulders” gave her strength. She demonstrated this strength for example when she intervened at the Gestapo twice in the name of her loved ones. The first time she made her way to the “Czerwoniak” building was when her brother Bronisław Ostrowski was arrested for the possession of old hunting weapons belonging to Konstanty Ostrowski, found by the Germans in the home.
The second time she made her way there to fight for the freedom of her sister Zofia. She was arrested in February 1943 due to so-called family accountability. The Gestapo had come to arrest her two elder sons, involved in the resistance. The young men had been warned of the plans and fled the town earlier. Their mother was arrested instead, and was sent first to the Pawiak prison in Warsaw, then to Ravensbrück.
Maria moved into her home and began caring for her two young nephews, as well as ran her sister’s bookstore in her absence. After Ostrów Mazowiecka was occupied by the Russians she defended the family house at Warszawska Street from the NKVD takeover. After the end of the German occupation she remained working at the bookstore until it was liquidated in 1949.
The family spent their last Christmas with Witold in 1946 in Warsaw, in the apartment of Eleonora and Edward Ostrowski. Both children, Zofia and Andrzej, recall the beautiful detail of the Christmas tree decorated with red and white bows. During the trial, she carried parcels to Witold, came to the hearings, and met him during visits to the hearings. She was not present during the reading of the verdict, she learned of the verdict from the radio – the trial was widely covered by mass media. After the verdict, Maria tried to intervene with the prosecutor and wrote a beautiful letter to the acting president Bolesław Bierut asking for clemency. Unfortunately, all to no avail. In late spring, she took another package for her husband to the prison. She learned from the guard that he had left. She was sure that, like many others, he had been deported to the East.
She left Ostrów Mazowiecka in October 1948, after the death of Franciszka Ostrowska. She was unable to find permanent employment, instead taking up odd jobs – she was a teacher at the therapeutic colonies of the Boarding Houses and Scholarships Society in Busko, then she worked at the State Personnel Training Center of the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Miedzeszyn. As the wife of an enemy of the people, she was constantly under surveillance by the Security Service and constantly lost her job.
In 1950, Maria was employed by Kazimierz Lisiecki “Grandpa”, a pre-war youth educator, founder of the Society of Friends of Street Children. Maria worked there formally in administrative and economic positions. She ran camps in Świder, worked at the Educational Centres in the Warsaw districts of Praga and Muranów, and was to take part in establishing the Educational Centre in Gdynia. From 1955, she ran a centre in Praga on her own. The pupils’ memories preserved the image of a very elegant and warm person, involved in the upbringing of young people. Even after she retired, her former, now adult dependents often visited her because she was an extremely important person to them.
She learned about her husband’s death during the rehabilitation process.
She died on February 6, 2002 in Warsaw. She wanted to be buried in Ostrów Mazowiecka, but was buried in her husband’s symbolic grave in the Pantheon of Fighting Poland at Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.