RIGHTEOUS GENTILES-ok

‘Righteous Gentiles’ is the phrase used for those non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. At Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, over 11,000 ‘Righteous Gentiles’ are honored; almost 5,000 are Polish.

Late one evening in April of 1943 a knock was heard at the door of the Suchodolski family in the village of Krzynowloga Wielski (Warsaw region). Adam Suchodolski opened the door and slowly made out the shadow of a man in front of him, his body swollen from hunger. The man fell down on his knees and begged for mercy. "Please help me stay alive." Adam and his teenage daughter Jadwiga painstakingly studied his face and finally perceived that it was none other than Michael Shaft, who, with his family, had lived in the village many years before. Michael had left the village to study law in Warsaw. The vicissitudes of the war had taken him from one place to another, and earlier that same month he had participated in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Escaping, he had wandered back to his native village. The Suchodolskis–Adam, his wife Stanislawa, and their children Jadwiga and Stanislaw, hurriedly consulted among themselves, weighing the risks and dangers, and decided to take Michael in.

As danger lurked on all sides, from neighbors and untrustworthy relatives, they decided to keep Michael’s presence a secret. A pit was prepared in the granary, the opening of which was covered with animal fodder. There, Michael remained hidden, cut off from the world, for almost two years, ’til the village’s liberation on January 15, 1945. He was regularly fed by a member of the Suchodolski family, who approached the granary through the chicken coop, ostensibly to feed the poultry. "The food was handed to me through a narrow crack. In the winter, rain penetrated the pit. But in spite of the discomforts, I resolved to make it through."

After the liberation, word soon spread that a Jew was being nursed back to life in the village. One day a group of partisans broke into the Suchodolski house and demanded that Michael be turned over to them. Young Stanislaw held them off long enough to allow Michael to jump out of bed and escape through the back door. Realizing they had been duped, they gave chase but did not catch up with him. In revenge, they ransacked the Suchodolski house. That night Michael came back. Soon thereafter, Michael and Jadwiga were married and left the village, eventually emigrating to Israel in 1957.

"I come from a very devout Catholic family," Jadwiga states in a letter to Mrs. Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, in 1972. "My family and I did what we did because we wished to observe the commandment of ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ I am proud, indeed, to be counted as a Righteous person. At the same time, I am glad that my family and I performed such an important commandment, and I believe that due to this, we have merited a place in the world-to-come." (953)