However, it is most unusual when the request comes from a non-Jew, and even rarer when that person is actually the descendant of someone who saved – or helped murder – Jewish people during the Shoah.
Two such requests were received by Yad Vashem in recent months – each coming from a unique but diametrically opposed personal history connected to the Holocaust: one was a granddaughter of a Righteous Among the Nations, while the other was also a granddaughter, but of a Nazi perpetrator. Over 70 years after the end of WWII, they both desired to take the same positive action: ensuring that the victims whose names they knew would never be forgotten.
The Wedya family (Jozefa, Wieslaw Jerzy and Zdzislaw Lech) were Jewish landowners who lived on an estate in Jankow, part of Kalisz County in Poland. In October 1939, their estate was confiscated by the Germans and they were sent to the Warsaw ghetto.
From October 1939 until January 1945, the estate was in the hands of a Nazi named Paul Burberg. Almost 80 years after the Wedya family had been exiled from their home and met their untimely deaths, Burberg's granddaughter, Mechthild Wagenhoff from Frankfurt, Germany, sent a request to Yad Vashem to fill out Pages of Testimony to commemorate the Jewish victims whose estate her grandfather had taken over.
Wagenhoff was investigating her family history when she found out about her grandfather's role in WWII. With the help of the Kalisz County Municipality and Archives, she discovered their names and understood that after they were sent to the Warsaw ghetto, two of the three were sent to their deaths in concentration camps. Her aunt, Ruth Burberg, verified that as a child she had spent time at the Jewish estate and that the place had been renamed "Ochsenberg." Ruth also verified that the previous owners had been 'relocated' to the Warsaw ghetto.
With the verifying documents and information in hand, she then turned to Yad Vashem in order to fill out Pages of Testimony for each of the Wedya family victims – stating on each Page that she, the submitter, is the granddaughter of the perpetrator.
"Mechthild could not correct the past, but she was willing to face and acknowledge painful facts relating to the part her grandfather played with regard to the Wedya family, and try to take some positive act in memory of the victims. Because of her, their names and story will now be commemorated for posterity."
Dr. Alexander Avram, Director of the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem
The second extraordinary request received by Yad Vashem came from Ira (Iryna) Korpan, the granddaughter of Righteous Among the Nations Katerina Sikorska, who had been murdered by the Nazis after having been found 'guilty' of hiding Jews during the war.
"Recently, I was perusing YouTube and found out that you are collecting the names of people who perished in the Holocaust," wrote Korpan in an email to the Names Recovery Project team. "I shared this information with my father, who is 90 years old now, and he recalled the names of Jews who once lived and prospered in his town of Podhajce, Poland (now Ukraine). I prepared the list and would like to share this valuable information with you."
The list prepared by Korpan consisted of 43 Holocaust victims, and she readily agreed that her father Roman be named the submitter of the Pages of Testimony in their memory. Some of the names on the list had never been submitted to Yad Vashem before, while others provided important supplemental information to victims already commemorated in the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names.
Together with the Pages of Testimony, Korpan also sent a picture of her grandmother Katrina, which she asked Yad Vashem to add to her profile in the Righteous Among the Nations Database.
“In line with her grandmother Katrina's honorable deeds, Ira and her father Roman continue to do good in this world, memorializing victims of their town, Podhajce. These are victims whose names might otherwise have been left unknown and lost forever. We urge anyone, from any background, to contact Yad Vashem if they know of names of victims. The identities of over a million Jewish men, women and children who have yet to be identified will remain anonymous unless people who once knew them come forward to say they once lived.” Dr. Avram
The Shoah Victims’ Names Recovery Project is generously supported by Dana and Yossie Hollander. Yad Vashem’s names collection efforts are also supported by: Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, France; the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany; Swiss Banks Settlement; Genesis Philanthropy Group; the Noaber Foundation; the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism; the Nadav Foundation; Swiss Friends of Yad Vashem; the Zanker Foundation; the Maror Foundation; Friends of Yad Vashem in the Netherlands; Friends of Yad Vashem in Austria; and Anonymous, Switzerland.
For more information on filling out Pages of Testimony or donating other sources containing names of Holocaust victims, please contact: names.proj@yadvashem.org.il
This article originally appeared in the "Yad Vashem Jerusalem Magazine," volume 89.
