Bombas Rozalia ; Daughter: Jakubska Zuzanna (Bombas)

Bombas Rozalia Jakubska-Bombas Zuzanna In 1941, a Polish woman carrying a baby a few months old appeared on the doorstep of the Bombas, a poor working class couple, who lived with their five children in the town of Horodenka, in the Stanislawow district. The Bombases rented a room to the woman, who came from Krakow, but after a while, she moved in with her sister-in-law, who lived in the neighboring village. When the woman disappeared from her new lodging, leaving the child behind, Zuzanna, the Bombas’ ten-year-old daughter, felt sorry for the abandoned baby. At her own initiative, she went in search of the baby, and brought him home, where she managed to persuade her mother, despite the latter’s misgivings, to keep the child. The Bombases knew nothing of the baby’s origins, until one day a neighbor told them that the child was the son of Moshe Pilpel, a Jewish pharmacist, who had disappeared without a trace. Despite the danger, Rozalia Bombas decided to continue caring for the Jewish baby, whose first name she did not even know. Bombas obtained a Christian birth certificate for the baby from the local priest, stamped in the name of Krzysztof Ryszard Chodźba. The Bombases treated Krzysztof as one of the family. Zuzanna, in particular, treated him as a younger brother, and spent all her free time with him. Little Krzysztof stayed with the Bombases until 1947, when a man introducing himself as the boy’s uncle turned up, accompanied by a representative of the Jewish Children’s Rescue Committee, and asked for the child to be handed over to him, since his parents had perished. Rozalia and Zuzanna, however, refused to give up Krzysztof, whom they loved, and on whose behalf they had risked their own and their family’s lives. When they realized that legally they had no leg to stand on, they agreed. The organization paid the Bombases for Krzysztof’s upkeep during the occupation. Krzysztof subsequently immigrated to Israel where he later changed his name to ZviDagon. On March 4, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized Rozalia Bombas and her daughter, Zuzanna Jakubska (née Bombas) as Righteous Among the Nations.