Wójcik Józef

WÓJCIK, JÓZEF Józef Wójcik was born in 1926 into a Polish family living in France. His father was a miner and had died in a mining accident. Józef’s mother decided to return to Poland. She settled in Sambor, in Eastern Galicia, where she used the money that she received as compensation to buy a two-family home for her and her three children. She rented part of the house to a Ukrainian family, the Malankiewiczes*(see volume Ukraine). Ivan Malankiewicz had been injured in the same accident that killed Józef’s father. Soon after returning to Poland, Józef’s mother passed away and the Malankiewiczes found themselves in the position of foster parents to the three children. In October 1942, Józef met Artur Sandauer on the street. Artur was a teacher in the Sambor High School between the years 1939 and 1941. This random encounter occurred while the Germans were carrying out an Aktion in the center of town. “During this massacre I noticed my teacher Artur Sandauer. I knew he was a Jew, and that he was in mortal danger. Despite the risk and the constant firing I reached the teacher and decided to help him,” wrote Józef Wójcik in his testimony to Yad Vashem. Józef, in agreement with the Malankiewiczes, hid the teacher in the family home in the Sambor suburbs. Two days later, when the Aktion reached its end, Artur returned home. He found only his mother, Berta, and his sister, Irena. His father was caught during the Aktion and murdered by the Gestapo in December 1942. Artur told his mother and sister that he knew of a Christian family that was ready to give them shelter. From then on, Józef’s house served as a shelter for the remaining members of the Sandauer family whenever things became too dangerous. In December 1942, a ghetto was established in Sambor and the Sandauers were forced to move into a ruined house near the Jewish graveyard on the ghetto’s border. They moved all of their furniture and valuables to Józef and his foster parent’s home. In June1943, the Aktion for the liquidation of the ghetto began. Berta and Irena hid for a few days in a pit without any food or water. When the Aktion ended, they decided to seek shelter at Józef’s home, which was on the other side of town. They reached his home at the break of dawn and the gate was open. They entered the cowshed and sat near the cows. In the morning, they learned that Artur had spent the night there as well. Józef and his foster parents hid the three Jews in the barn and immediately began building a more permanent hideout for them. A few days later, the Sandauers were moved to the new hideout. In the yard stood the farm buildings, consisting of a small corridor with an oven, a cowshed, a stable, and an outhouse. Above all of it was an attic. In the attic above the corridor, Józef and his foster parents built a hideout enclosed by a brick wall. The hiding Jews rarely left the hideout. They would go down to the stable only to wash. “With time we ran out of money, but they kept us with them and shared their food with us, of which they did not have very much,” wrote Dr. Irena Glanz (Dr. Sandauer’s sister) in her testimony. The Sandauers hid in Józef’s home until the liberation in August 1944. Six months after welcoming the Sandauers into his home, Józef was caught during a street roundup and was sent to do forced labor in Germany. He managed to escape from the transport but was caught again and sent to another labor camp in Drohobycz, where he stayed until the end of the war. Most of the prisoners there were Jews, and, after the camp was liberated by Soviet forces, Józef joined the Red Army. After the war, he returned to Poland, finished his studies, and received a degree in agronomic engineering. In 1986, he retired. In 1966, Józef Wójcik testified at the trial of the Drohobycz camp’s commandant. Józef was the only Pole among the witnesses; all of the others were Jews. Berta and Irena emigrated from Poland to Israel in 1950. Artur Sandauer, whohad become a professor at the University of Warsaw and a well-known writer and literary critic, remained in Poland until his death in 1989. On November 7, 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Józef Wójcik as Righteous Among the Nations.