A Loving Sacrifice
Born in Galicia, which was once considered Poland and later became part of the Soviet Union in 1939, Yudit was the youngest of five children, and is the only living member of her family. Prior to WWII, Yudit had three sisters and a brother. Her father worked as a handyman, and they lived within a vibrant Jewish community in Galicia.
Sadly, Yudit’s childhood ended the day the Nazis occupied Galicia in 1941. Immediately, they began rounding up Jews for deportations. Those who were strong and considered fit to work were selected for forced labor camps, while those deemed weak, like the elderly and small children, would be sent straight to their death.
To save Yudit’s life, her mother and father had to make a choice. They decided that instead of delegating Yudit’s fate to the SS officers, their baby girl’s future and well-being would be placed in the hands of their righteous non-Jewish neighbours who agreed to hide her at their own risk.
Yudit’s parents made the right choice. Though they would never see her again, they ensured her survival.
A Secret Identity
“I lived in the attic of my neighbour’s house and studied the New Testament. This way, when the time came, and they allowed me to leave the house and mingle with other children, they [Nazis] would assume I was a Christian,” Yudit recalled.
Yudit’s new caretakers were correct in exercising caution, since the Nazis’ war against the Jews unveiled the dormant anti-Semitism that existed in towns across Europe - not just in Germany. Murdering Jews became a sport, and anyone caught hiding Jews would be killed.
Realizing the danger of hiding Yudit in the attic, her caretakers decided to send her to a Catholic monastery, where she took on a new identity as a Catholic girl.
“For years I went back and forth from the monastery to the family who hid me. At one point they tried to get me into an orphanage, but the orphanage rejected me because my nose looked too Jewish,” Yudit explained.
With the help of her selfless neighbours, her own courage and wit, and God’s blessing, Yudit survived the Holocaust. Her neighbours will forever be remembered in Jerusalem’s Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, as Righteous Gentiles.
A Clandestine Move
After the war, Yudit reunited with her sister, who was her only other family member to survive the Holocaust. Yudit lived with her sister and worked as a cashier for 16 years.
The area where Yudit and her sister lived became part of the Soviet Union after the war. Life there was hard. Hunger, lack of work, and lack of heating during the freezing winter months were but a few of the problems, especially for Jews. The Jews had to conceal any sympathy they might have felt for Israel, since being labeled a Zionist was a serious crime.
But Yudit desperately wanted to start a new life, and dreamed about moving to Israel. Yudit eventually discovered that she had cousins in Tel Aviv, and through some very intricately planned maneuvers, she traveled to Poland, and from there to Israel, where she was home at last.
