Recently, the library of “Tkuma” Institute and Museum "Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine" received a valuable gift from our good partner Mrs. Tatiana Fedoriv - a book by Polish researchers Anna Piątkowska, Katarzyna Pruszkowska-Sokalla “The Last of the Righteous. Conversations With Poles Who Saved the Jews During the Second World War – (Kraków: Znak, 2020. 320 p.).
This is a unique book that presents the memories of Poles - the Righteous Among the Nations. "There was death every second", says one of the book's protagonists today. Twenty conversations. Dozens of lives saved. Real memories, human emotions and stories of the last living participants of those events. Sometimes it's hard to believe that these stories really happened.
Olena Goldstein becomes Maria Bozhek. A school friend helps her get out of the Krakow ghetto, hides her in the attic of an apartment building, organizes a trip to Warsaw.
Vladislav Misyuna works in a farm house in a Nazi camp. The food he gets from the Nazis goes to people instead of rabbits ...
Józef Wałaszczyk accepts thirty Jews into his factory. To save them, he must agree with Germany. After the war he was called "Polish Schindler".
Until a few decades ago, these conversations would have been impossible. The heroes went a long way to tell the world about their own experiences and the fate of the people they helped in the terrible conditions of World War II. The heroes of “The Last Righteous” saved the Jews from imminent destruction, often risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Today we especially need such stories - full of kindness, solidarity and devotion.
The authors of the publication are
Anna Piątkowska - journalist, graduate of the Faculty of Polish Philology, Jagiellonian University (Poland). It is published on the portals Interia and Styl.pl, specializing in interviews as a form of meeting the two worlds. This book is the result of interest in other people and encounters with extraordinary personalities, which could hardly be found on the front pages of newspapers.
Katarzyna Pruszkowska-Sokalla - journalist by education and profession. A graduate of the Polish School of Reporting and Comparative Studies of Civilizations at the Jagiellonian University (Poland). For several years she has been cooperating with the media, mainly with the Interia portal. At work, she values the opportunity to meet people and their stories the most, which is why her favorite journalistic genre is interviews.
We truly thank Mrs. Tatiana Fedoriv for this important gift!