Poland

Nika Kohn Fleissig and mother Rabbi Alicia Magal at Yad Vashem

خانواده ولسکا (The Wolska Family)

  نشان "نیکوکاران جامعه بشری" به مالگورزاتا ولسکا (Wolska Malgorzata) و فرزندانش میچیسلاو ، هلینا میخالسکا ولسکا  (Halina Michalecka-Wolska) و واندا شاندورسکا ولسکا (Wanda Szandurska-Wolskaa) و برادرزاده اش یانوش ویسوتسکی (Janusz Wysocki) برای تلاش نافرجام  نجات دکتر عمانوئل رینگلبلوم(Emanuel Ringelblum) اعطا... Read More Here

یان کارسکی (Jan Karski)

یان کوزیلوسکی (Kozielewski) در سال 1914 در لودز متولد شد (کارسکی لغب وی در گروه زیرزمینی بود و بعدها تصمیم گرفت که این لغب را به اسم خانودگی خود تبدیل کند). وی تحصیلات خود در رشته جغرافیا را در سال 1935 در دانشگاه لوو (Lwów) به پایان رساند و به عنوان کارمند وزارت امور خارجه لهستان آغاز به کار... Read More Here

يان كارسكي

ولد يان كارسكي عام 1914 في مدينة لوج البولندية لعائلة كوزيلوفسكي (وهو اسمه الحقيقي، علما بأن اسم "كارسكي" اسم حركي قرر فيما بعد تبنيه كاسمه الثاني). في سنة 1935 أنهى دراسته في قسم علم السكان بجامعة لفوف فتوظف في وزارة الخارجية البولندية. وبعد احتلال بولندا في سبتمر أيلول 1939 التحق... Read More Here

Jan and Antonina Zabinski

Hiding in Zoo Cages   By the 1930's the Warsaw Zoo had become one of Europe's largest zoos. Its expanded area housed many animals. This prosperity was, however, short lived. When World War II broke out extensive parts of the zoo were destroyed in the bombings, many animals were killed, and others, including the zoo's special attraction – the elephant Tuzinka – were taken to Germany. Dr. Jan Zabinski was the director of the zoo. He was the author of many popular-knowledge books about... Read More Here

Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma

Murder in Markowa   While indifference and hostility to the Jews’ fate was common, some Poles chose to help their former Jewish neighbors, even though hiding Jews was punishable by death. The murder of the Ulma family – an entire family that was killed together with the Jews they were hiding – has become a symbol of Polish sacrifice and martyrdom during the German occupation. It stands in stark contradiction to the conduct of the villagers of Jedwabne, who murdered their Jewish neighbors... Read More Here

Leopold and Magdalena Socha

Rescue in the Sewers   Leopold Socha lived in a poor neighborhood of Lwow (Poland) and worked as a laborer for the municipal sanitation department in maintaining the sewage system. When the Germans occupied Lwow, Socha, horrified by the Germans’ atrocities against the Jewish population, befriended Jews who had been interned in the ghetto. After he decided to rescue at least twenty of them, he co-opted Stefan Wroblewski, a Pole who worked with him in cleaning out sewage canals, into his... Read More Here

Władysław & Stanisław Swierczewski

Before the war, Władysław Swierczewski and his family were living in Plońsk (Warsaw District) as tenants in the home of the Neuman family. Władysław became friends with Eli (later, Edward Lejman), the son of his landlord, who was an outstanding soccer player in the town. He did not desert his Jewish friend at the time of the occupation. In December 1942, at the height of the deportations to Auschwitz, he helped Eli escape from the ghetto and for a time gave him shelter in his... Read More Here

Euzebia Bartkowiak

The Mother Superior’s Tears On the morning of Sunday, August 16, 1942, someone knocked on the gate of the Sisters of Resurrection convent in the town of Mir (Stołpe County, Nowogródek District, today, Belarus). Opening the gate, one of the nuns who resided in the convent was astounded to see a man slip in right past her. Oswald Rufajzen (Rufeisen), later, Brother Daniel) had escaped from the police station adjacent to the convent. Oswald had come to Mir from Wilno posing as a Pole. His... Read More Here

Ignat and Sofya Yermolovich

Shelter During the Massacres The farmers Ignat and Sofya Yermolovich, both in their late 30s, lived with their daughter Tonya in the town of Mir, Nowogródek District (today Grodna District). Between the two World Wars, many Jewish families lived in the town and the Yermoloviches were friendly with some of them. In the early morning of November 9, 1941, the day of a large-scale Aktion in Mir, the Yermoloviches welcomed six Jewish friends into the shelter of their granary. These were Cyla... Read More Here

Malgorzata Wolska and her children Mieczyslaw, Halina (Michalecka-Wolska), Wanda (Szandurska- Wolska) and nephew Janusz Wysocki

The Failed Attempt to Rescue Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum   The Wolski family lived at 81 Grojecka Street, Warsaw, in a property that they owned. It consisted of a two-story building with a garden and a greenhouse that was maintained by Mieczyslaw Wolski, who was a gardener by trade. Mieczyslaw lived with his mother Malgorzata, his sisters, Halina and Wanda, and his nephew, Janusz Wysocki. During the war, the family gave shelter to over 30 Jews, including Dr. Emanuel Ringleblum, a well-known... Read More Here

Anna Borkowska

Anna Borkowska was the mother superior of a small convent of nine Dominican nuns located near Kolonia Wilenska, on the road leading from Vilna to Vileika. When the killing of the Jews in Vilna began, Borkowska opened the convent's gates to a group of 17 members of the illegal Jewish Zionist pioneer underground movements. Despite the enormous difference between the two groups, very close relations were formed between the religious Christian nuns and the left-wing secular Jews. The pioneers found... Read More Here

Wladyslawa Wierzbicka-Kostanska and her son, Jan Kostanski

Over the Ghetto Walls   Wladyslawa Kostanska lived in Warsaw with her son Jan and her two daughters. In 1940 they moved to an apartment building where they formed a deep friendship with a Jewish family by the name of Wierzbicki. When the ghetto was created, the apartment house was divided into two parts by the wall that was drawn through the city and that was to separate Jews from non-Jews: the part where the Kostanski's lived in was in the part outside the ghetto, with the wall running... Read More Here

Tadeusz and Wladyslawa Korsak, Jan and Maria Michalowski

"Eli Levin's Search into the Past"   When the war broke out the Perewoski family – Shmuel, Dora and their two small children, Eli (Leszek) and Celina – lived in Vilna, where the family owned a lumber business. After the initial killings, Shmuel Perewoski realized the hopelessness of the situation and decided to smuggle his family out of the ghetto. Tadeusz Korsak, a pre-war business acquaintance, offered to help. The family escaped in early 1942. The first one to be taken out of the ghetto... Read More Here

Tadeusz Czezowski, his wife Antonina Czezowska and their daughter Teresa Czezowska

Even before the war, Professor Tadeusz Czezowski was known by Jewish circles as an outspoken critic of the Numerus Clausus restricting the intake of Jewish students to the University of Vilna. In 1941, when the Germans occupied Vilna, Czezowski, his wife, Antonina, and their daughter, Teresa, decided to try and ease the plight of the Jews. At first, they smuggled food into the ghetto for their friends, and later, during the liquidation of the ghetto, sheltered eight members of the Fessel and... Read More Here

Stanisław and Regina Świda

Jews living under false identity during the Holocaust faced enormous challenges. The fact that Jewish males are circumcised and bear the mark of their identity on their body presented an additional difficulty to the few who were able to survive in hiding. In this respect the story of Avraham Horowitz's survival in Warsaw is unique. He survived thanks to the courage and resourcefulness of Stanisław and Regina Świda, who succeeded in having the child in their care declared as a Muslim. Avraham... Read More Here

Stanislawa Rotman-Kaczmarczyk

The Rescue of a Childhood Friend   Stanislawa Kaczmarczyk and Jakub Rotman were childhood friends from Plock. Before the war, Kaczmarczyk moved to Warsaw and after the occupation, met Rotman. Since Plock was annexed to the Reich and therefore subject to strict anti-Jewish laws, Kaczmarczyk invited Rotman to come and stay with her in Warsaw until he found an apartment. Rotman took up the offer, and when the Warsaw ghetto was established, Kaczmarczyk obtained forged documents for him in her... Read More Here

Maria Walewska

Shmuel Eliraz’ Lost Childhood   Shmuel Eliraz today is a prosperous farmer who lives with his family in Israel. Like many survivors, he immersed himself in his work and family, investing all his energies in building a new life in Israel. Facing the dreadful memories of the past was too painful, and only in recent years did he tell his story to his son, Navot who wrote it down under the title “My Father’s Lost Childhood”. Shmuel Eliraz was born in Warsaw in 1935. His maternal... Read More Here

Maria Burdowa

Salia and Richard Klarfeld lived with their children, Eva (subsequently Chava) and Marian (subsequently Moshe) in Lvov, Poland. Once a week, Maria Burdowa, a Polish woman from the town of Jaworow used to come to the house selling flowers, and a friendship grew between them. In April 1942, as life became more precarious for Jews, the Karfelds approached Maria, and asked her to take Eva and Marian in until things calmed down, offering her money to help with the extra expenses. Maria took Eva and... Read More Here

Jan Karski

The Envoy Jan Kozielewski (he later took on his non de guerre Karski) was born in Lodz. In 1935, he completed demography studies at Lwow University, and embarked on a career of a civil servant at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was cut short four years later by the war, and when Poland was occupied by Germany, Kozielewski joined the Polish underground – the Home Army (Armia Krajowa). His photographic memory made him ideal for the job of courier between the underground in Poland... Read More Here