Rožanc Mihael & Ema ; Daughter: Horvath Elizabeta (Rožanc)

Horvath, Elizabeta Savic (Rožanc) Rožanc, Mihael Rožanc, Emma On the eve of World War II, there were some 1,300 Jews living in Slovenia, mostly in the northern parts of the country. There were 95 Jews in the capital, Ljubljana. Following the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1940, Slovenia was divided, and Ljubljana came under Italian rule. But when Italy and the territories under its control were occupied by Germany in September 1943, Jews in those areas were in danger of deportation. Regina Steinberg was married to a non-Jewish man by the name of Ladislav Zajc, and in 1939 they had a son, Tomaž. The family had a nanny, Elizabeta Rožanc, who took care of the infant. Regina’s parents, Viljem and Lili Steinberg, were arrested in the end of 1943 and deported to Dachau and Ravensbruck, where they perished. A year later, on September 12, 1944, local collaborators came to arrest Regina and her husband. Elizabeta, who was spending the night at her employers’ home, realized the danger and took little Tomaž, sneaked into the neighbors’ apartment, and after the police left, she went to the home of her parents, Mihael and Emma Rožanc. The neighbors were told that Tomaž was Elizabeta’s illegitimate child. He stayed at their home until his mother returned in July 1945. In his testimony Tomaž wrote that he remembers his mother’s return, “when I first sighted my much emaciated mother after the long separation, coming up the path to the Tivoli castle, calling out to me with my childhood name Maži.” He added that he regarded Elizabeta as a second mother. “By declaring me her own hitherto hidden illegitimate child, she also willingly exposed herself to what at that time amounted to a severe social stigma. She disregarded both the danger to her life and her reputation to save me, then a child of four.” After the war the two families stayed in close contact, and after Elizabeta immigrated to the United States in 1958, Tomaž went to visit her several times. On June 7, 2016, Yad Vashem recognized Elizabeta Savic (Rožanc) Horvath and Mihael and Emma Rožanc as Righteous Among the Nations.