Łoziński Emil & Łozińska Maria

Łoziński, Emil Łozińska, Maria For many years before the war, Józef Rozenberg, who owned a pharmacy in the town of Zolkiew, in the Lwow district, was friendly with Emil Łoziński, a pensioner, who used to spend many hours in the pharmacy chatting with him about current affairs. After the occupation of Zolkiew in the summer of 1941, and the subsequent pogroms against Jews by the Germans and their collaborators, Łoziński and his wife, Maria, offered Józef, his wife, Agata, and their daughter, Helena, a temporary hiding place in their one-roomed cottage. During the Aktion that took place in the city in March 1943, the Rozenbergs and their daughter, Helena, escaped and again hid with the Łozińskis. Since the entire Jewish community of Zolkiew was wiped out by the Aktion, and all Jewish fugitives were shot on the spot, the Rozenbergs had no choice but to stay with the Łozińskis, who despite being elderly and poor, looked after them devotedly, without expecting anything in return. After a while, however, Łoziński’s hours-long vigils by the window to make sure no one was approaching the house awakened the neighbors’ suspicions. Worn down by constant anxiety and tension, Łoziński one day asked his charges to leave the house. However, the very next day, after attending church, he retracted his request, and the Rozenbergs ended up staying for 16 months, until their liberation by the Red Army. By day, the refugees hid in an underground cellar, from which they emerged at night to eat and wash. After the war, the Rozenbergs emigrated to the United States. In 1995, Helena visited Zolkiew, but no one there remembered the Łozińskis, whose courage remained engraved in the Rozenbergs’ memory for many years thereafter. On March 7, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Maria and Emil Łoziński as Righteous Among the Nations.