Rzonców Sabina

Rzonców-Pogorzelska, Sabina In late 1942, when the Germans began to exterminate Jews in the Białystok district, the Weintraubs and the Olszaks fled from Zawady to the surrounding forest. One of the five escapees was an infant a few months old, who obviously could not survive for long under the harsh winter conditions. In their wanderings, the fugitives came to an isolated family farm that belonged to the Rzoncóws. The farm was run by Sabina Rzonców, a young woman with two young children who lived with her elderly father-in-law. Although the Jewish refugees were total complete, Rzonców agreed to shelter them in her pigsty and kept track of the Weintraubs’ baby daughter, whom they had left at the doorstep of a peasant family nearby. The Weintraubs also gave Rzonców the addresses of relatives abroad, who were to claim their daughter in the event that the parents did not survive. The two couples stayed in hiding on the farm for about a year and a half until the liberation in the summer of 1944. Throughout that time, Rzonców took care of them and met all their needs. Even when a Wehrmacht unit encamped near the farm shortly before the liberation and made it dangerous to continue concealing the refugees, Rzonców continued to serve them. Her motives in everything she did were solely humanitarian and did not involve material reward. After the liberation, Sabina assisted in tracing the whereabouts of the Weintraub’s baby daughter, and after the war, all five survivors immigrated to Israel. On May 15, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Sabina Rzonców-Pogorzelska as Righteous Among the Nations.