Holocaust survivor meets Catholic rescuer 70-years on
An Israeli man and a Polish woman have been reunited in New York 70 years after her Catholic family saved him during the Holocaust.
Michael Hochberg, 77, held hands with Krystyna Jakubowska, 86, at Kennedy International Airport, locking eyes as their relatives looked on. They were brought together by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.
Ms Jakubowska, who flew in from Warsaw to meet Mr Hochberg, said through a translator: “He was a very pretty boy and he was very good – no problems with him as a child.
“But I was scared, because the Germans announced on the street what would happen if somebody is saving a Jew.”
The punishment was death.
Ms Jakubowska’s family took Mr Hochberg in at four after he was literally thrown over the wall of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw by a friend so as not to fall into the hands of the Nazis who herded hundreds of thousands of Jews there, many of them then sent to an extermination camp.
For two years he lived with Jozef and Rozalia Jakubowski, friends of his family, and their son and three daughters including Krystyna, then a teenager. The family made sure no one discovered that he was circumcised and therefore Jewish; most Christian babies did not undergo the procedure at that time.
Mr Hochberg had escaped just before the 1943 uprising that sent the ghetto up in flames he could see from the balcony of the Jakubowski apartment.
He never again saw his parents or grandparents, who all died, and he could never venture out of the apartment except at night.
“Very few people helped the Jews,” Mr Hochberg said. “In the Jewish tradition, you say, whoever saves one soul saves the whole world.”
Jozef Jakubowski, who fought against the Nazis as a member of the Polish underground, was killed in combat. The rest of the family was forced out of the city into the countryside, taking the boy along.
At the end of the war “I just hugged everybody, and I had to leave” said Mr Hochberg, who grew up in a Jewish orphanage in the town of Otwock, eventually moving to Israel,where he had three sons and eight grandchildren.
He and Ms Jakubowska met previously in Poland in 2006.
Mr Hochberg and his wife live in the Israeli city of Haifa and are now spending a month in the US. They also plan to visit Las Vegas and Miami.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
