On Tuesday, January 6, 2009, Yad Vashem will hold a ceremony honoring Magdalena Grodzka-Guzkowska from Poland as Righteous Among the Nations. The ceremony will take place in the presence of the Righteous, who is arriving from Warsaw for the event, as well as Holocaust survivor William Donat, who is flying in from New York especially for the event.

Also participating in the ceremony is the wife of the President of Poland Maria Kaczynska, Polish Secretary of State Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev, and educators from Lodz, Poland currently participating in a seminar at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies.

A memorial ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance will be held at 9:30AM, and the ceremony awarding the medal and certificate to the Righteous will begin at 10:00AM in the Synagogue, followed by the unveiling of the name of the Righteous in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem.  The events will take place in Hebrew and Polish.

Rescue Story:

Magdalena Grodzka-Guzkowska (née Rusinek) was 15 years old when she enlisted in the Polish Underground against the Germans. In 1943, she met Jadwiga Piotrowska, later recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations, and joined her in helping children escape from the Warsaw ghetto. Magdalena collected the children, cared for them and escorted them to their places of refuge with Polish families or in monasteries, always with the utmost dedication and love although she was placing her own life at serious risk. Before bringing the children to their hiding places, she taught them Christian customs in an effort to disguise their Jewish identity.

One such rescue activity saw Magdalena save the life of a six-year-old Jewish boy called Adas, who had been severely injured by local thugs. Magdalena took the boy for medical care at the hospital, and then moved him to a hiding place in a monastery. She also took five-year-old Wlodzio Berg from the ghetto to an apartment in the city as a temporary refuge. She brought him food every day, as well as colors with which to draw pictures. Wlodzio Berg, now William Donat, survived the Holocaust and requested that Yad Vashem recognize his rescuer as

Righteous Among the Nations.

On September 25, 2008, the Commission for the Designation of the Righteous at Yad Vashem decided to recognize Magdalena Grodzka-Guzkowska as a Righteous Among the Nations.

(Yad Vashem)