Maria Antonina Kratochwil

Maria Antonina Kratochwil (21 August 1881 – 7 October 1942) She tried to help the Jews survive during the Holocaust. A member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame residing in the Kresy region of the Polish Second Republic before the war began; she was arrested along with her sisters by Nazi Germans a year after Operation Barbarossa of 1941, and singled out for anti-Nazi activities. She was severely beaten while in prison, contracted typhus, and died upon her hasty release.

Life Maria Antonina was born in Witkowice near Ostrava where her parents arrived in 1879 from Węgierska Górka in the Austrian Partition. In search of sustenance, her father worked at a foundry. In 1885 the family returned to her mother's hometown in Węgierska Górka close to Żywiec, and settled in Bielsko nearby.

In 1901 Maria Antonina entered the Congregation of School Sisters of Notre Dame, a worldwide Roman Catholic order devoted to providing primary, secondary, and post-secondary education. She passed her maturation exams in 1906, As punishment for her audacity, Kratochwil was subjected to a torturous beating. Returned to the cell all bloodied, she could no longer lie on her back. five days after her release from prison. She was buried in (the no-longer existing) Sapieżyński Cemetery in Stanisławów. A short book was published about her life in 2001.