Burda Elżbieta (Szyszkiewicz)

Burda, Elżbieta In the early days of the German occupation of Białystok in June 1941, Elżbieta (Liza) Burda, an inhabitant of the city, decided to come to the rescue of Jews who were being rounded up in the city. Dr. Kagan was one of the Jews saved thanks to her. After the Jews were herded into the ghetto, Burda, a nurse, risked her life to smuggle in medicines and food for the ghetto inmates. Burda also allowed her apartment to be used as a provisional shelter for Jews who escaped from the ghetto, and later, also as a rendezvous for members of the ghetto underground and Jewish partisans of the Forojs (“Forward”) unit, which operated in the area. Efraim Nachimowicz, an escapee from the Majdanek concentration camp, found shelter with Burda from October 1943 until July 1944, when the Red Army liberated Białystok. Burda also saved her colleague, Anna Myszkowska, by providing her with “Aryan” papers, which enabled her and her two friends to live under an assumed identity until the area was liberated. In risking her life to save Jews, Burda was motivated by humanitarian and patriotic considerations, in which helping Jews was perceived as an integral part of the struggle against the common enemy. On February 23, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Elżbieta Burda as Righteous Among the Nations. File 2839