Adolph Krystyna

Adolph, Krystyna Before the war, Krystyna Adolph taught at the Czartoryski High School in Vilna, and the twin sisters Monika and Lidia Gluskin were students in her class. Widowed when the war broke out, she was forced to support herself and her young daughter on their small farm in Ignalino, a village near Troki, about thirty kilometers from Vilna. When the Germans occupied Vilna in 1941, Krystyna sent a special messenger to the Gluskin sisters and offered to shelter them at her farm should they be in danger. When the Vilna ghetto was established, Monika and Lidia took up the invitation, fled to the farm, and were given a warm welcome. The Jewish twins spent the next three years at the farm, helping Krystyna do the housework, take care of the animals, chop firewood, and tend the vegetable garden and the fields. Krystyna introduced her guests to the neighbors as relatives who had fled from forced labor. Only the father and sister of Krystyna’s late husband knew their real identities; they visited the farm occasionally and Krystyna’s sister-in-law provided the secluded twins with forged papers. Krystyna was fully aware that she was risking her life by sheltering Jews, especially since the Germans had burned down a house in a neighboring village—with the entire family inside—after discovering a Jewish family hiding there. Krystyna also helped the twins’ mother by obtaining false identity papers for her with which she left the ghetto and survived on the Aryan side. Krystyna accepted no remuneration for her actions, which were prompted by her humanitarian and Catholic beliefs. After the war, the Gluskin sisters settled in Israel and stayed in touch with Krytyna Adolf for many years. On May 14, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Krystyna Adolph as Righteous Among the Nations.