Szostak Zygmunt & Ludwika

Szostak, Ludwika Szostak, Zygmunt One day in August 1942 Ludwika and Zygmunt Szostak’s modest abode was visited by a lady who had come to see a room to let in their apartment. The Szostaks were pensioners living in Warsaw’s Żoliborz suburb. All they had for income was Zygmunt’s pension, and they wanted to alleviate their financial hardship by renting out their spare room. The Szostaks soon learned that the new lodger, Dora Agatstein, was Jewish and had escaped with Karolina, her 7-year-old daughter, from the ghetto in Lwów (now Lviv) a mere month before its liquidation. The Szostaks were initially wary but warmed to the Agatsteins as time passed. When Dora ran out of money to pay them, not only did the elderly couple not turn her out but they actually had her and the child move into the bigger room with them because it was getting cold and the room was better heated. Ludwika even knit socks and a sweater for little Karolina. In order to provide for everyone, Ludwika and Dora found work wrapping candies at home. Dora also began teaching local children, and when their progress was noticed at the parish schools, she was offered a position there. Karolina was sent to kindergarten, and Ludwika was the one who took her there and back. In 1944, with the Polish uprising, the area was bombarded heavily, and its residents, among them the Szostaks and the Agatsteins, were evacuated. They were taken to a village in southern Poland that was liberated in April 1945. The Szostaks went back home. Dora and Karolina went first to Kraków and then to Israel in 1950. Ludwika passed away in 1970, and Zygmunt in 1972. On November 13, 2012, Yad Vashem recognized Ludwika and Zygmunt Szostak as Righteous Among the Nations.