Pizuńska Olga

Pizuńska, Olga In late 1942, during an Aktion carried out by the Germans against the Jews of Zbaraz, in Eastern Galicia, the Germans caught ten-year-old Judit Fuks together with her parents. As they were being taken to the execution site outside the city, her parents told her to flee and try to save her own life. Judit ran away from the line of Jews and for a while hid in the barns of local farmyards. She eventually entered a wayside inn, which was used by wayfarers and German soldiers. There, Olga Pizuńska, the owner of the inn, immediately recognizing that she was a Jewish child, took pity on her. She took her into her own apartment, fed her, changed her clothes and decided to do whatever she could to save her. Pizuńska arranged a hiding place for the little girl in the attic, where she hid during day, while at night she slept together with her in her room. Fuks hid in Pizuńska’s home for a year and a half, until the liberation in March 1944. In her request to have Pizuńska recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations, Fuks wrote, “Thanks to her warm devotion and sincere concern, taking the place of my mother, I survived the war and remained alive.” After the war, Fuks (married name Dubinski) immigrated to Israel and Pizuńska moved to an area within the new borders of Poland. On July 15, 1975, Yad Vashem recognized Olga Pizuńska as Righteous Among the Nations.