warsaw | Marysia Ambrozy has participated in many events honoring those who helped Jews during the Holocaust, but a recent ceremony in Wroclaw, Poland, made her cry for all the wrong reasons.
In May, two elderly sisters were recognized by Yad Vashem for helping their impoverished parents feed, house and hide nine Jews during the Holocaust.
At the awards ceremony, Ambrozy, a cultural assistant at the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw, overheard a newspaper interview with the sisters, who were in their early teens at the time of their parents’ act of valor.
“They said that they don’t need a medal and they don’t care about it,” she said, adding that the sisters said “what they need is money. The journalist asked them, ‘Don’t you think that you did a great thing?’ And they answered — ‘Our stupid mother was helping and never got anything for this.'”
The sisters’ bitterness is perhaps a rare phenomenon, she noted, but it illustrates some of the problems Righteous Gentiles, as they’re called, and their heirs have in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. They tend to be from poorer areas, since it was easier to hide Jews in rural villages during the war than in cities.
Ambrozy explained that after World War II, the sisters’ mother was attacked by neighbors for helping Jews. Their father died of cancer — the family was too poor to pay for his medical treatment.
The sisters sought financial aid for their family from Jewish organizations, but were unsuccessful, according to Ambrozy, who added that they were now desperate for money to pay for their own medicines.
Ceremonies for the righteous are held almost every month in Poland as aging survivors sometimes wait until late in life to let their families and Yad Vashem know about their protectors and their wartime suffering.
Ambrozy’s boss, cultural attache Ya’akov Finkelstein, points to what he says is an equally disturbing stumbling block for the Righteous Gentiles. “I get letters each month from people who tell us they don’t want the ceremony where they live, they don’t want people to know about the award, which really shocked me when I came here,” Finkelstein said.
“They’re concerned that their neighbors think they’re getting money from the Jews,” he explained. “Others were worried that they might be robbed if the media put the word out that they got some kind of award, and then there are some who say their neighbors will condemn them for being supported by Jews.”
Yet more people in Poland helped Jews than in any other nation, according to Yad Vashem, which has recognized nearly 6,000 Righteous Among the Nations in Poland.
There is a very active association of those who saved Jews, but whether their deeds are admired or even appreciated by most Poles remains unclear.
An extensive report last spring in Poland’s leading daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, chronicled the fear some recipients of the Yad Vashem medal feel.
Estee Ya’ari, spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, said via email that most people who receive the recognition are proud, but added, “we have heard of a few cases in Poland where the righteous prefer that their names not be made public.”
To strengthen the official endorsement of Righteous Gentiles’ position in Polish life, more Polish politicians have been turning up at the Israeli Embassy’s award ceremonies.
However, the righteous face the same financial difficulties as all other aging people in Eastern Europe. Their tiny pensions — most live on $150 to $300 a month — have not kept pace with inflation, and many struggle to survive.
Yad Vashem’s medal award is meant as a symbolic endorsement of moral courage, since a financial award might suggest that one should help others for personal economic gain.
Cash-strapped local governments say they would love to provide greater sustenance to the righteous, but insist they already face many other social problems that affect all of their elderly.
The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, founded in 1986, is the only organization that provides financial support to those who have received the Yad Vashem recognition.
The New York-based Claims Conference, which has a budget of $1.4 million, provides stipends to 1,450 men and women in 28 countries, including about 700 in Poland.
“It definitely helps me survive — it means I can get medicine,” said Righteous Gentile Maria Florek, whose pension is $200 a month.
Stanlee Joyce Stahl, the foundation’s executive vice president, hinted that descendants of Holocaust survivors should be interested in the well-being of the descendants of the righteous.