Sophie’s mother. Born Maria Świergocka in 1890 in Poland, she survived the German occupation and the war. By the 1950s she was preparing to emigrate to the United States to join Sophie; she died around 1959 in Poland, on the eve of that move. The FBI file from 1970 and the 2005 SIP obituary both reference her death in Poland.
Per Sophie’s 1960 hand-written statement she was a devout Catholic and the daughter of a lawyer; Sophie was given the second name “Julia” in honor of her maternal grandfather. The 1960 statement is rich with description of her but, like every other figure on the Polish side, never names her — the name is recovered from the FBI file.