"What is more important, the identity I was born with or the way I feel now?"
(Sara Warszawiak Avinun)
Sara was one of many children who grappled with an identity crisis after the war. Few children survived the holocaust. Some survived living in hiding under assumed identities with families and in convents. In many cases, these children felt at ease with their new identities and did not want to leave their rescuers and rejoin the Jewish fold. Becoming well acquainted with Christian traditions, some children did not just go through the motions but took on the Christian faith as their own. Adopting their rescuers' way of life gave the children a feeling of security. In certain instances, they were afraid to reclaim their Jewish identity and affiliate themselves once more with the Jewish community. Some continued to recite Christian prayers and to wear a cross even after they had left their rescuers' homes.
Sara Warszawiak was born in 1936 in the town of Bilgurai, Poland to Yehuda-Leib and Esther-Etka Warszawiak, a sister for Shimon (Shimek). When the war broke out, the family fled to Lwów and then to Brody. After the German invasion of the USSR, Sara's parents entrusted her to a Ukrainian woman who lived outside Brody and hid her in return for payment.
Following Yehuda and Esther's deportation to the camps, the payments to the Ukrainian woman ceased and Sara was thrown out of her home. She wandered the streets until a Polish friend of her father's took her under his wing, gave her the name Irena Jablonska and brought her to a convent, claiming she was a Polish orphan whose home had been burned down by the Ukrainians. She was eventually moved to Kraków, where Jan and Julia Pilec became her devoted caretakers.
At war's end, Julia took Sara to the offices of the Jewish Committee to register her as a survivor. A few months later, Sara's grandfather and uncle arrived and requested that she be allowed to leave with them. The courts ruled in their favor, and Sara was taken to the children's home run by the Koordynacja (Zionist Coordination Committee for the Redemption of Jewish Children in Poland) in Zabrze, but she ran away and returned to her adoptive parents, continuing to live as a Christian. Sara's grandfather sued the Pilecs, and gained custody of Sara.
In 1950, Sara immigrated to Israel and settled in Kibbutz Kfar Menachem, joining the Youth Aliyah's "Amir" children's group. She stayed in touch with her adoptive parents and sent them photographs and presents. Over the years she became integrated into the children's group, and was even elected to the leadership of the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Israel. She married Benny Avinun and they have three children.