Righteous Honoured in Gliwice

Zofia Hübner was awarded the medal and certificate for saving Rachela, a Jewish girl. In December 1942, Zofia and her husband Alfred took in the four year old girl from an unknown woman and cared for her. Until the end of the War, Rachela grew up with Ewa, the Hübner’s daughter who was three years younger.

Rachela took on a new identity. Her adoptive parents called her Ludwika Wołynia (using Zofia Hübner’s mother’s maiden name). After the War, Ludka found her way to Israel, losing contact with the Hübner family. Today, she is called Lea Simchai. Ewa, her adoptive sister, and Ludka searched for each other for many years.

In June 1942, Zofia Hübner took little Arno Haana out of the Kraków ghetto and brought him to her parents, Katarzyna and Jan Witz, in Lwów. Today, Haana lives in the United States and is the famous violinist Prof. Adam Hana-Górski. The Witz family was posthumously awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal in 2012.

During the War, Irena and Marian Kral cared for two Jewish girls. After the War, the elder one, Wanda Kremer, left for Israel. The younger one, Łucja Kral-Cieślak (nee Heller), remained with the family and only, as an adult, did she discover that she was not the real daughter of Irena and Marian Kral.

Both girls have since passed away. Łucja Kral-Cieślak’s husband, Józef, a resident of Gliwice applied for them to be recognised. The Krals’ children, Jolanta Kolińska and Zygmunt Kral, accepted the honour.

Julia and Kazimierz Zięcik were also honoured . In 1943-44, on their farm outside of Tarnopol, they hid a group of thirteen Jews who had escaped from the ghetto. The created an underground bunker for them. Four people hid in the house and nine in the stable.

The medal and certificate were accepted by their son, 88 year old Józef Zięcik from Bytom. "This is honouring the hardship and risk to life. If, during the occupation, it had become known that those people were being hidden, we wouldn’t be here,” said Zięcik. “Our family, which I’ve counted to number more than ninety people, would not exist.”

The decision to honour the Hübner, Kral and Zięcik families was taken in 2013 by a special commission of the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem. Amongst those taking part in the ceremony in Gliwice were representatives of the Israeli Embassy, the City Mayor Zygmunt Frankiewicz and more than 300 Gliwice school students.