Nowosielska Zofia (Dutkiewicz)

Nowosielska Zofia In the early days of the occupation, Regina and Ignacy Weinberger from the city of Tarnobrzeg found themselves in the town of Zborów, in Eastern Galicia. The Germans liquidated the Zborów ghetto in June 1943, and the Weinbergers were among the few people that managed to escape. In September, after the Germans intensified their searches for Jews that had fled to the forests, the Weinbergers appealed to their former neighbor Zofia Nowosielska, asking her to hide them in her home. Nowosielska was a young woman who made a living farming together with her brother. She prepared a hiding place for the two fugitives in the tool shed in the farmyard, and for ten months, from September 1943 to July 1944, took care of all their needs. A Ukrainian neighbor that suspected she was hiding Jews informed on her to the authorities, and the Germans, accompanied by Ukrainians, searched her home. The fugitives were not discovered, but things had changed, and Nowosielska, knowing that she was being watched, lived in constant fear that the hiding place would be found. She nevertheless continued to tie her fate to that of the Jews she had hidden, and disregarding the very real danger to her life, she continued to hide them on her property, motivated by pure altruism, never asking for or receiving anything in return. After the war, the Weinbergers immigrated to the United States, and Nowosielska moved to central Poland. On May 5, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Zofia Nowosielska as Righteous Among the Nations. File 5198