Righteous Medal Award Ceremony in Piotrkow Trybunalski

A ceremony, posthumously honouring Weronika and Józef Wójcik with the title of Righteous Among the Nations, took place in Piotrków Trybunalski on 14th January 2016. During the Holocaust, they hid a Jewish girl, Chana Morkowicz, in their home. It was Chana who recommended that this honour be bestowed upon her benefactors.   The ceremony took place in the municipal library, a building which had once served as a synagogue. The Medal was presented by the Israeli Deputy Ambassador Ruth Cohen-Dar, and was accepted by the Wójcik's children Jan Wójcik, Kazimierz Wójcik and Jadwiga Leśniewska.   "It is a great honour for us", said Kazimierz Wójcik, who recalled how "she, at first, called our parents auntie and uncle, then it was dad and mama. She could speak Polish very well. She wrote letters while our mother was still alive. Later it stopped. Our sister wrote, but then a war broke out in Israel and it all stopped again".   Chana (now ) Hausler visited Poland ten years ago. It was then, for the first time, she met the children of Weronika and Józef Wójcik.   During the ceremony, which was attended by here own children and grandchildren, she recalled that "they took me in with the greatest of love and surrounded me with the most wonderful care that I could ever want. The Germans would repeatedly search for Jews in hiding. During those times, I would have to hide in a tiny room, sometimes away from the house in the forest. For many hours, I had to lie or sit motionless. I had nothing to eat nor could I use a toilet. Our neighbours had no idea that a small Jewish girl was being hidden. For that reason, from that time, my most vivid memory is the fear of being found”.   Weronika and Józef Wójcikowie lived in the village of Taraska (Aleksandrów municipality). They took a four year Jewish girl from Sulejów, Chana Mordkowicz, into their home. She spent the entire War with them. They hid her in the house and in the nearby forest. The girl lost her entire close family. After the War, when she was nine years old, she was found by distant relatives. She then ended up in a Jewish orphanage in France. Later, she was placed into care in Israel, where she settled and started her own family.