Kozak Maria (Zalwowska)

Zalwowska-Kozak, Maria In June 1943, during the final liquidation of the Zbaraz ghetto, in the Tarnopol district, eleven-year-old Ludmila Sonnenschein, her ten-year-old sister, Rozalia, and thirteen-year-old brother, Shmuel, fled from the slaughter and hid in the nearby forest. One day, when the two sisters went to a nearby village to search for food, their brother was killed by a gang of Ukrainian nationalists. The sisters, panic-stricken, left the forest, and wandered around the area day and night, until they met Maria Zalwowska who, in her compassion, forgot her fear, and brought them food each day to their hiding place in a wheat field. When the harvest began and the girls could no longer continue hiding in the wheat field, Zalwowska took them to her home, where she lived with her daughter and son-in-law, and their baby girl. Despite the fear of discovery by policemen and local nationalists, Zalwowska sheltered Ludmila and Rozalia in her home until March 1944, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. In risking her life to save the two Jewish orphans, Zalwowska was guided by a deep love of mankind and sincere humanitarian considerations. After the liberation, the Sonnenschein sisters were placed in a Soviet orphanage and, through it, reached Kazakhstan, where they stayed until their emigration to the United States in 1989. After the war, Maria Zalwowska and her family left Zbaraz and moved to an area within Poland’s new borders. On October 13, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Maria Zalwowska (later Kozak) as Righteous Among the Nations.