Kotas Antoni

File 2145 Kotaś, Antoni Kotaś Antoni, a NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) in the Polish Army, lived with his wife and four children in the village of Żytyń-Cukrownia in the Volhynia district. In 1941, after the Germans occupied the area, the Kotaś family moved to the town of Równe. In December 1942, 15-year-old Ester Finkielgluz, the daughter of a grocer from Żytyń-Wielki, turned up at the Kotaśes’ home, after surviving the massacre of the Jews in the Aleksandrja ghetto near Równe, in which all her family had perished. Despite the danger, Kotaś took her in and passed her off as a relative. In due course, Kotaś provided her with forged identity documents (an “Aryan” documents; during the occupation times, Antoni belonged to the Polish underground organization- pl. “Wachlarz”; en. “Fan”) on the name of Szorc Antonina, which enabled her to leave and find work on the “Arjan side” of the city. After the war, Finkielgluz (later known as- Siekiera) Edwarda immigrated to London, where she kept up ties with the Kotaś family. On the 22nd of October 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Kotaś Antoni, as a Righteous Among the Nations.