Gibes Józef & Józefa

Gibes, Józef Gibes, Józefa Jakub and Dora Künstlich, their seven-year-old son, Adolf, and their friend, Szymon Goldberg, who lived in the village of Jadowniki Mokre, were interned in the ghetto in the nearby town of Brzesko, in the Krakow district. When they managed to escape in 1942, the four returned to their village and knocked on the door of Józef and Józefa Gibes, old acquaintances of theirs, who, without a moment’s hesitation, agreed to shelter their former neighbors. Despite the danger to themselves and their four children, the Gibes hid the four refugees in a bunker they dug under the feeding trough in the pigsty, which they covered with straw. In April 1943, Dora Künstlich gave birth to a girl who was left at night on the Szatkowskis’ doorstep. The Szatkowskis, a childless couple, looked after her and brought her up under the name Weronika. The Gibeses, guided by humanitarian considerations, looked after the Künstlichs and Goldberg and saw to all their needs, despite their straitened circumstances, until January 1945, when the area was liberated. Immediately after the liberation, Goldberg left Poland, while Jakub and Dora Künstlich were murdered by a gang of Polish thugs in late 1945. When it became known that the Gibeses had helped Jews during the occupation, they became the targets of threats and blackmail. In 1946, after Józefa died, a number of thugs turned up at her funeral, riddled her coffin with bullets, and began cursing and insulting her for her work in saving Jews during the occupation. Adolf Künstlich, the Künstlichs’ son, immigrated to Denmark while his sister, Weronika, stayed in Poland. On October 25, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Józefa and Józef Gibes as Righteous Among the Nations. File 6331