Rogowski Jan & Rogowska Eugenia

Rogowski, Jan Rogowska, Eugenia In the autumn of 1942, after escaping from the Zloczow ghetto, in the Tarnopol district, Lea and Tonka, relatives of the Zwerdling family, reached the home of Jan and Eugenia Rogowski, who lived in the nearby village of Usznia. Despite their straitened circumstances, the Rogowskis offered them shelter in a camouflaged pit that was specially dug in the granary of their small farm. Although German soldiers stationed in the village used to park their motorbikes in the granary, the Rogowskis were not deterred, but risked their lives to help the two Jewish refugees, without expecting anything in return. In time, 12-year-old Nina Zwerdling, Tonka’s niece, who after much suffering and distress lost her mother, joined the refugees. The Rogowskis, guided by humanitarian considerations and a love of mankind, looked after the refugees devotedly until July 1944, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, the survivors left Poland and Rogowski and his wife settled within Poland’s postwar borders. Nina Zwerdling (later Frankel) moved to the United States and in 1998, came to Poland to visit Eugenia, after Jan passed away. On January 21, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Eugenia and Jan Rogowski as Righteous Among the Nations.