Holocaust survivor meets her Polish savior after 60 years

A Holocaust survivor from northern Israel was reunited for the first time in 60 years on Wednesday with the Polish woman who sheltered her during the Holocaust and saved her from the extermination of the Nazis. Between 1942 and 1944, Wiktoria Sozanska (nee Jaworska) risked her own life, along with her widowed mother and five siblings, to secretly house Rozia Rothshild (nee Seifert) and her family in Poland. Sixty years later, the two greeted each other at the JFK Airport, in a meeting arranged by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. A Polish interpreter was on hand to facilitate the reunion. "I cannot fully express how grateful I am to Wiktoria and her mother Anna. They opened their home and their hearts to me, risking their own lives in order to save me," said Rothshild before the reunion. "Their bravery is what has allowed me to live and build a wonderful family of my own, with three children and four grandchildren," she said. "I am so thankful to them and the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous for making this extraordinary reunion possible." Rozia Seifert was one of 5,000 Jews herded away from Turka, Poland and shuttered by the Nazis into the Samburg Ghetto. Many of the healthy adults were able to hide away in a bunker in the woods before being exiled to the ghetto, but the children and the sick were taken away, forced to sell all their belongings. Wiktoria Jaworska, then a young woman, came with her mother to look at the furniture the Seifart family had put up for sale. When she learned that the girl she saw in front of her would be taken away to the ghetto, she told the family: "We will take care of you. You will come with us." In the middle of the night, Sozanka's brother Mikolaj Jaworska came to the Seifart home in a hay cart and snuck Rozia, her brother Lucien, her father Mendel and disabled aunt Fanya away, past the eyes of the Germans on patrol. The Jaworskas hid the Seifarts in an underground bunker for two years, every day bringing them food and disposing of their waste. The Germans raided Turka in the summer of 1944, when the Soviet army began to approach. Sozanka and her mother moved the Seifarts into the woods, where they lived for two weeks until the area was liberated. After the war, Rozia Seifert met her Israeli husband and immigrated with him, changing her name to Shoshana - the Hebrew version of her name. Wiktoria Sozanka, now in her 80s, lives in Wroclaw, Poland. "In the many years we have worked with survivors and their rescuers, I remain awestruck by the heroism of the thousands of rescuers who risked their lives to save others. By holding true to their values, these individuals saved Jews from certain death," said JFR Executive Vice President Stanlee Stahl. "We owe a great debt of gratitude to these men and women, and through our work, hope to improve their lives and preserve their stories." The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous was created in 1986 to provide financial assistance to non-Jews who risked their lives and often the lives of their families to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. Today the JFR supports more than 1,200 aged rescuers in 26 countries. The Foundation preserves the legacy of the rescuers through its internationally lauded Holocaust education program for middle and high school teachers and Holocaust center personnel.