Righteous are Honoured in Łódź

KJ, 16 November 2016
Righteous Among the Nations medals have been presented to the descendants of two families from the Łódź region – families who saved Jews during World War II. Those posthumously e honoured were Marianna and Edward Szubański, Antonina Łężak, as well as Ewa and Mikołaj Turkin. The ceremony was held on Thursday 29th August 2013 at the Jewish Community Council in Łódź.

The Szubański family, from the village of Kolonia Bilew, saved the life of Jewish baker, Jósek Piotrowski, who had come to their home looking for a place to hide. The Szubański couple gave Jósek shelter – he hid in a hay stack on their farm. He remained there happily until the end of the War. He left for the United States and, until the end of his life, he maintained a warm relationship with his saviours.

Ewa and Mikołaj Turkin rescued a Jewish girl Salusia Goldblum. The Goldblum family had been ejected from their home in Katowice. They were in the Dabrowa Gornicza ghetto. Mikołaj Turkin, by profession a teacher, worked in the ghetto reading electricity meters. There, he got to know the Goldblum family and decided to help them. He brought them food and warned when German operations would take place. In July 1943, in the evening preceding the liquidation of the ghetto, he led their daughter Salusia into the “Aryan side” and took her into his home. She remained with the Turkin for nearly two years and was treated as a member of the family. At the end of the War, she ended up at a Jewish orphanage in Gliwice from where, in 1947, she was taken to Canada. Today, she is called Sally Wasserman and lives in Toronto.

The presentation ceremony was part of the 69th anniversary commemorations of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto liquidation. The anniversary was commemorated with prayers at the Łódź Jewish Cemetery and with a ceremony at the Radegast railway station. From the Jewish Cemetery on ul.Bracka, participants took part in a March of Remembrance which ended at the Radegast railway station.