“This is a photograph of our meeting several decades after the Holocaust. That’s the Hollywood sign in the background,” Maria Mikusz smiles as she points to the image, which shows her standing next to Izabela “Inka” Huber (née Hauser) and her mother Frieda.
Maria, known to her friends as “Mewa,” was fifteen when she rescued the three-year-old Inka from the Czortków ghetto (in present-day Ukraine).
Inka’s parents had permission to work outside the ghetto boundaries. But, to save their daughter, they needed the help of someone on the “Aryan side". Maria managed to free the girl, but the Hausers were not able to reach the home of Maria’s parents, Andrzej and Aniela Dobrucki, by the appointed time. So Inka, who was only going to hide out with the Dobrucki family for several hours, stayed with them for three years.
Her mother, Frieda Hauser, eventually arrived in 1945. By then, the girl had become so much a part of the Dobrucki family, that her leaving was an ordeal for both sides.
In the years 1942-1945, the Dobrucki family helped many other Jews in Czortków. In 1983, in recognition of their heroism, they were awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".
