Pelc Janina (Rekas)

Pelc, Janina (Rękas) In an Aktion carried out by the Germans on October 28, 1942 in the Kamionka Strumiłowa ghetto, in Eastern Galicia, hundreds of Jews were sent to the Bełżec extermination camp. During the transport to the camp, four young people, all related, jumped off the train: Rachel Tennenbaum (née Katz), her sister Gusta and their cousins Frieda Wertman and Abraham Tennenbaum. After wandering throughout the surrounding forests, they decided to return to their hometown. On the way, they met Władyslaw Swiec, who recommended that they approach Janina Rękas, a relative of his, who agreed to hide them in a hiding place she prepared for them in her barn. Rękas was a poor woman who barely had enough to support herself, but she shared the little she had with the four fugitives whom she had just met. The Germans searched her home for the Jews she was hiding, but did not find the hiding place. Rękas hid all four fugitives from May 1943 until the liberation in July 1944, and they would always remember her with love for the great kindness she showed them, disregarding the danger to her own life. After the war, the survivors immigrated to the United States and Canada, and Rękas moved to Tomaszów Lubelski and married Shmuel Pelc. On July 5, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Janina Pelc (née Rękas) as Righteous Among the Nations. File 2595