The text is an attempt at a new, nuanced presentation of the relations between Poles saving Jews and the hiding Jews, based on several hundred accounts of survivors and those who helped them survive, given before Polish historical commissions after World War II. The analysed testimonies concerning the Kielce province, and, in part, the Kraków and Bialystok provinces, were given before the historical commissions in Lódz, Kraków, Przemysl and Bialystok (the archives of the Jewish Historical Institute, fond 301). Assuming that an adequate historical analysis without a correct morphological and linguistic analysis is impossible, the authoress develops her own terminology, abandoning the honorific term 'Righteous', which makes the situation of saving heroic, as well as resigns from the objectifying term 'survivors' (lit. ocaleni, saved). A supplementary category of sources are ethnographic interviews, conducted in selcted localities of the Kielce province during 2004-2008.