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124 Out of the Inferno KONSTANCJA MARZEC The event took place in Wolyn, on the outskirts of the small town of R6zyszcze. One day my father brought home a sixteen-year-old girl from the woods. She was Jewish. Her name was Eugenia Katz. My family sheltered her in our home during the German occupation. After the war, she emigrated to Israel. Quite often we helped other Jews who came to us for food; there was the late Mr. DoXgopoluk and others, whose names I don't recall because my parents never asked them. I remember one young Jew named Geniek, who stayed with us for three months. In the region where we lived, many Jews were saved by Polish families, although every Polish family risked their lives in doing so. Marzec, who is in ailing health, lives in retirement in Poland. She visited Katz and other Jewish friends in Israel in 1980. LEOKADIA MIKOLAJKOW Together with my husband and sons, I lived during the Nazi occupation in the town of D~bica, where we had a clinic. Next to our home were the local Gestapo and the criminal police. Opposite our home was the gate to the Jewish ghetto, established by the Germans in D~bica in 1940. Jews from far and wide were brought together in this ghetto. Here the Germans selected strong and healthy women over sixteen years of age and men over fourteen for work in the concentration camp in Pustkow. All working Jews, registered in the Arbeitsampt (Bureau of Labor) and other workshops, received basic medical care in a clinic offered by me, a qualified nurse, and my husband, Aleksander, a physician of great learning. Other residents of the ghetto and working families also received examinations. In 1940 a Jewish woman by the name of Reich came with her son, Froimek, for an examination. She appealed to my husband to save her son from certain extermination. Froimek, who was physically weak, would probably have been shot by the Germans in several days 125 Leokadia MikoJajk6w on account of his unsatisfactory output at work. My husband and I decided to help Mrs. Reich and Froimek; he was registered at the Arbeitsampt as a messenger for the dispensary. From that moment, we helped the Reich family and other Jews many times with medicine and food. In the meantime, there were two major liquidations of Jews. In the fall of 1942, the Germans began the complete liquidation of the Jewish ghetto of D~bica. With the aim of hiding at least some Jews from extermination, I gave Froimek the key to my home so that he could hide as many Jews as possible in the garage and in the office garret. More than once it also happened that I sent my own son to the ghetto to take Froimek the key, which he had forgotten. During the time of the liquidations and pogroms, Froimek brought us nine of his relatives to rescue. We took care of them in our home for five to seven days. With our consent, Froimek simultaneously began the work of adapting the garret of our home and the cellar under the garage as a hiding place for the Jews for a longer time. In November 1942, my husband, Aleksander, found out that the Germans planned to finish the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in the next several days. That same day, twelve of Froimek's relatives escaped from the ghetto and concealed themselves in our home. From that time until the liberation of D~bica by the Soviet army on August 24, 1944, twelve people were under our constant protection: Froimek's parents, two sisters, brother, brother-in-law, three cousins, uncle, aunt, and a five-year-old child. In the beginning, they hid themselves in the cellar under the garage of our home and in an outbuilding, but during the day they stayed in the garage. In December 1943, the German criminal police entered our home, saying that they were requisitioning the garage for their own needs. They demanded at once the key to the garage. Anticipating that at that moment the Jews hiding in the garage were moving about, I induced one of the Germans to walk with me to the inside door of the garage, talking loudly in German, after which I feigned forgetting the key and returned to the house for it. I judged that the Jews in the garage had heard the German language and had hidden themselves in...

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