Honouring the Righteous in Siedlce

KJ, 16 November 2016
A further ceremony honouring Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust took place on May 5th 2015 at the Municipal Cultural Centre in Siedlce. Righteous Among the Nations medals and certificates were presented by the Israeli Ambassador, Anna Azari to the descendants of  Irena Egierszdorff, Adolfina and Stanisław Szczerbicki, Helena Szmurło and Wacław Szpuraze. City Mayor, Wojciech Kudelski, also took part in the ceremony.

Over two years during the occupation Irena Egierszdorff and her sister Zofia Olszakowa-Galzer (honoured as Righteous in 1988) cared for Rachela Zonszajn, a girl brought out of the Warsaw ghetto. The girl had earlier been cared for by Irena and Sabina Zawadzki in Siedlce. But, because of the danger (a nearby gestapo station), the women took the girl to Zofia and Irena. Rachela obtained Aryan papers and lived with the women in Zakrzówek, near Kraśnik, from the autumn of 1942 to the summer of 1944. After the War, in accordance with the wishes of her surviving uncle, the girl left for France and then for Israel.  

Adolfina and Stanisław Szczerbicki lived in the village of Koszelówka (Biała Podlaska District). In 1942, they took into their home the eight-member Gewirtzman family from Łosic and cared for them until July 1944.

For over two years, Helena Szmurło hid Mosze Smolarz in the barn of her farm in Płosodrza near Łosic. He had managed to escape from a train transporting Jews to the Treblinka death camp. After the War, he left for Israel.

Wacław Szpuraze of the village of  Dubicze (Biała Podlaska District), helped by his wife and son, helped thirty Jews hidden in the village and in the nearby woods. He provided them with food and medicines and warned them of impending dangers. Some of those saved were members of the Gewirtzman family who had found shelter with the Szczerbicki family who, for their actions, had been murdered by Poles in 1945.