The Righteous Feliks Żołynia

KJ, 16 November 2016
On April 24th, 2013, the Dominican monastery in Sandomierz staged a Righteous Medal awarding ceremony. The medal was posthumously bestowed upon Feliks Żołynia and was presented to his daughter Krystyna Wołoszynek. The ceremony was attended by Holocaust survivors.

Feliks Żołynia, a Wierzchowiska inhabitant (in Modliborzyce municipality, Lubelskie Province), rescued five members of the Sztajnberg family from Janów Lubelski during the Holocaust. Icchak and Fajga Sztajnberg and their children Cywa, Frida and Menachem were in hiding for almost two years on the Żołyńs’ farm, in an underground hideout in the barn. Żołynia supplied food and slept with them at that time. After the end of the war, the Sztajnbergs left for Israel.

The Righteous Among the Nations Medal was conferred by the deputy ambassador of Israel Nadav Eshcar to Feliks’s daughter Krystyna Wołoszek. The ceremony, which was attended by the survivors and their descendants, coincided with the opening of an exhibition by Jewish-born artist from Staszów Jesekiel Dawid Kirszenbaum.

The ceremony was followed by a mass for the members of the Righteous Among the Nations in the church in Sandomierz.