Sprawa Marty Puretz, domniemanej agentki Gestapo z krakowskiego getta
The Case of Marta Puretz, a Purported Gestapo Agent from the Cracow Ghetto

Summary/Abstract: Reference literature casts Marta Puretz in a role of a Gestapo informer. However, a search query conducted in the large collection of documents stored at the Archives Nationales in Paris contradicts that. It is not by accident that Puretz is called a ‘purported agent’. This article constitutes a typical, meticulously documented reconstruction of her life – in Poland, in Hungary, and also in France after the war, for only such an outlook can facilitate a revision of existing opinions. The author describes the milieu of the assimilated Cracow Jewish intelligentsia which shaped her; her stay in the ghetto and fight for survival; her escape from the Płaszów camp and the fortunate circumstance of her having two women on the ‘Aryan’ side – her nanny and former maid – who she could always count on. Before fleeing to Hungary she received help for several months from a group of her Polish friends, who sheltered her. Hungary was not a salvation to her. It was more of a trap. An unfortunate episode was her temporary dependence on a Polish Jew, a man named Faber, who later accused her twice of cooperation with the Gestapo. In Hungary she became romantically involved with Charles Heroz, an employee of the French attaché’s office in Budapest.

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