Maria Hajdo (married name Wieliczko) was born in 1917 in Tarnów. She moved to Zator with her parents before the Second World War, when her father was employed as equerry (responsible for the horses) in the local Potocki estate.
During the German occupation, she worked in the Zator brickyard, which supplied bricks to KL Auschwitz, among other camps. Thanks to a permanent pass to the camp, she made contact with the prisoners. She acted as an intermediary in the exchange of illegal prison correspondence (secret messages) and supplied the prisoners with food and medicine. She also helped organise escapes.
She and her family rescued Noemi Berter, a Jewish child smuggled out of the Lviv ghetto, for which Maria was imprisoned in KL Auschwitz and sentenced to death by the Germans. She avoided execution thanks to her own great resourcefulness and fluent knowledge of the German language.
She died in Zator in 1976. She is buried at the cemetery in Zator.
Photograph: Collection of Remembrance of Land of Oświęcim Residents / private archive of Jan Wieliczko