Zofia Glazer, née Olszakowska (12 April 1915 – 20 November 2007), was a Polish educator and resistance member during World War II, involved in rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. Zofia is known for rescuing Cypora Zonszajn née Jabłoń (1915–1942). The two were close friends from the prewar Gymnasium of Queen Jadwiga in the city of Siedlce, in the Second Polish Republic. Cypora (Cypa) was a Polish Jew born into an affluent family. Zofia was the daughter of a local Catholic pharmacist in Siedlce. They studied together for their final matura exam, after which the two girls went their separate way
Zofia Glazer, née Olszakowska (12 April 1915 – 20 November 2007), was a Polish educator and resistance member during World War II, involved in rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. Zofia is known for rescuing Cypora Zonszajn née Jabłoń (1915–1942). The two were close friends from the prewar Gymnasium of Queen Jadwiga in the city of Siedlce, in the Second Polish Republic. Cypora (Cypa) was a Polish Jew born into an affluent family. Zofia was the daughter of a local Catholic pharmacist in Siedlce. They studied together for their final matura exam, after which the two girls went their separate ways until the Holocaust in occupied Poland. During the September 1939 Nazi–Soviet invasion of Poland both women were in Siedlce, separated by circumstances beyond their control. At the end of November, the new German administration ordered the creation of a Judenrat. On Christmas Eve the Nazis set fire to the synagogue and burned it to the ground, with Jewish refugees inside. Cypora and her family were forced into the newly formed Nazi ghetto in Siedlce around August 1941. Over a year later, she wrote a first-person account of its murderous liquidation. Cypora committed suicide in November 1942 when her husband…
0 comentarii14 vizualizări0 reacții
Zofia Olszakowska-Glazera adăugat o fotografie
acum 8 zile
R.I.P Zofia
Background After her high school graduation Zofia enrolled at the Warsaw School of Economics, where she studied the cooperative movement. She was one of the protesting students against the Numerus clausus form of segregation introduced by the Sanacja government. She continued her studies in Sweden until the invasion of Poland, and came back to Siedlce as soon as the war began. She made contacts with the Polish underground resistance movement and became associated with the Bataliony Chłopskie partisans. Also from Siedlce, Cypora was one of five Jewish teenagers in Zofia's class. Upon graduation, Cypora enrolled at the Institute of Agriculture in Warsaw. Back in Siedlce, she married Jakub Zonszajn, a typesetter. Following the 1939 invasion of Poland, Cypora and her family were forced to move into the Siedlce Ghetto created by the occupational authority formally on 2 August 1941 and closed off from the outside on 1 October 1941. On that day, Cypora gave birth to her baby girl Rachela (Rachel). In order to provide for the family, her husband Jakub joined the Jewish Ghetto Police organized by the Judenrat Council on the orders of the Nazi administration in the ghetto. His decision helped them survive the ghetto liquidation action,…
0 comentarii14 vizualizări0 reacții
Zofia Olszakowska-Glazera adăugat o fotografie
acum 8 zile
R.I.P Zofia
Treblinka deportations The Siedlce Ghetto liquidation action began on Friday, 22 August 1942. Around 10,000 Polish Jews from three transit ghettos were rounded up at the town square. The next morning the men, women and children were marched to the Umschlagplatz and sent to Treblinka aboard awaiting Holocaust trains. An additional 5,000 to 6,000 Jews were forced into the cemetery and sent away to their deaths the following day by train. Cypora with her one-year-old Rachela (pictured) found refuge in the so-called 'small ghetto' (a.k.a. 'the little ghetto', or Drojek) thanks to Jakub, who organized their transfer, but the ultimate fate of the remaining Jewish prisoners could easily be guessed. Cypora joined a group of Jewish refugees at a house inside the little ghetto. There, she took care of another Jewish girl, Dorota Monczyk (Maczyk). Three days later Cypora learned about the hospital massacre by Orpo and left the Drojek ghetto under the cover of night. They came to the house of another one of Cypora's high school friends, Irena Zawadzka, on the Aryan side of the city. Zofia Glazer and Cypora met again at the Zawadzkis house. The baby Rachela remained with the rescuers but the two girlfriends found…
0 comentarii14 vizualizări0 reacții
Zofia Olszakowska-Glazera adăugat o fotografie
acum 8 zile
R.I.P Zofia
Polish Righteous among the Nations The Zawadzki household of Polish Righteous included Sabina Zawadzka, her daughter Irena age 27 in 1942, and her grown-up son Kazimierz with his wife Krystyna. The family changed Rachela's name to a Catholic-sounding name – Maria Józefa – so she could live with them openly. After two months Irena Zawadzka attempted to get a "legitimate" birth certificate for Rachela and arranged for the local Catholic convent to take her in. However, the little girl soon fell sick and was taken back home. Rachela remained with the Zawadzkis until 1943, even though the house was in close proximity to the Gestapo office in Siedlce. In the summer 1943, while the murderous Aktion Reinhard was coming to a close elsewhere, Zofia Glazer came to Zawadzkis, and took Rachela with her. They travelled to the town of Zakrzówek near Lublin. Zofia placed the child with her own sister, Irena (Olszakowska) Egerszdorff. She went to a Catholic priest and obtained a new birth certificate for Rachela in the name of Marianna Tymińska. They remained in Zakrzówek for six months. In the early winter of 1944 Zofia took Rachela to Sobieszyn, near Puławy. The Soviet army liberated the area in…
