Maria Kotarba (4 September 1907 — 30 December 1956) was a courier in the Polish resistance movement, smuggling clandestine messages and supplies among the local partisan groups.

Maria Kotarba was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem on 18 September 2005 for risking her life to save the lives of Jewish prisoners in two Nazi concentration camps.

After the Nazi German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Maria Kotarba, a Catholic, witnessed the extermination of her Jewish neighbours near Gorlice, where she lived, and vowed to aid any Jew she could.

[3] Arriving at Auschwitz in the winter of 1943 she was allocated the prisoner number 27995, and after a range of camp duties, in the middle of 1943 was assigned to Kommando Gartnerei, the Gardening Commando labour squad.

[2] Kotarba was aware of the other woman's perilous position and did all she could to help her as well as her sister, Guta, who arrived in Auschwitz from the concentration camp at Lublin-Majdanek with her friend Henia Trysk.