Rajski Wincenty

Rajski, Wincenty In June 1943, with the liquidation of the Jewish community of Trembowla, in Eastern Galicia, Sabina Herbst, her five-year-old daughter, Myra, and sister-in-law, Fania, escaped from the ghetto, and asked the local farmers for refuge. After being robbed by local Ukrainian nationalists, they made their way to the village of Podhajczyki, where Wincenty Rajski, a former customer of Sabina Herbst’s late husband, lived. Rajski, who was an honest man and devout Catholic, welcomed the three refugees, gave them food, and allowed them to rest, but was reluctant to let them stay in his house for any length of time. Stirred to compassion, however, by the plight of Sabina and her daughter, Rajski decided to hide the three refugees in a cave in a field. When rainwater flooded the cave, Rajski transferred the refugees to the loft of the cowshed, where they hid for about ten months, until the area was liberated by the Red Army in March 1944. The refugees gave Rajski the few possessions they had managed to salvage from the robbers, to help pay toward their upkeep, but Rajski himself never asked for any payment. At the time, the village was flooded with German soldiers, due to the advance of the Soviet front and, therefore, hiding Jews was even more dangerous than usual. After the war, Sabina, her daughter and sister-in-law emigrated to the United States while the Rajskis moved to an area within Poland’s new borders. Later, the survivors, remembering how Rajski had risked his life to save them, sent him parcels and kept up contact with his children, who had been too young at the time to realize what was going on. On July 27, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Wincenty Rajski as Righteous Among the Nations.