Halina Aszkenazy-Engelhardt Passes Away

Mateusz Szczepaniak, 23 November 2016

It is with great sorrow that we advise of the passing of Halina Aszkenazy-Engelhardt, a Holocaust survivor, liaison operative in the Warsaw Uprising, authors of many works regarding her memories of World Wr II, a social-cultural activist and Chair of the Union of Warsaw Jews in Israel. She passed away on Rosh Hashana – the Jewish New Year.

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Halina Aszkenazy-Engelhardt was born in Warsaw in 1924 to an assimilated Jewish family. In 1940, together with her mother, she was moved into the Warsaw ghetto. Following the outbreak of the uprising, she ended up at the Umschlagplatz.

"They marched us slowly and packed us into the death wagons", she said in an interview with POLIN Museum in 2013. "There was no room to move. There was no air, only two tiny windows. We stood there. People fainted. People relieved themselves where they stood. The sun shone all day. I almost fainted.

She managed to jump off the train which was heading for the Majdanek death camp. After getting to Warsaw, she came up Father Michał Kubacki, parish priest of the Most Holy Heart of Jesus Basilica. He arranged a baptism certificate for her. She remained under his care until the end of the War.

"Father Kubacki and his housekeeper were incredibly kind. (…) I'd go to the priest every day. He taught me religion, the principles of the faith and how to pray. He was a noble individual. He respected my Jewishness and never forced me to do anything", she recalled.

After the War, she left for Israel where she wrote many of her memoirs, among them the book entitled "I Want to Live". She always stressed her warm feelings towards Poland and called it her "first homeland".

In 1997, Father Michał Kubacki was posthumously honoured with the title ofRighteous Among the Nations on the testimony of Halina Aszkenazy-Engelhardt. The full story can be viewed HERE, or within the „Dobry adres” virtual exhibition, which presents the stories of Jews rescued in occupied Warsaw.