Sawicki Ludwik & Sawicka Czesława ; First Wife: Sawicka Irena

Sawicki, Ludwik Sawicka, Czesława Sawicka, Irena Shlomo Gazit was a boy when he met Ludwik Sawicki, an archeology professor in Warsaw, as he was slipping out of the Warsaw ghetto to the Aryan side of the city, to beg. Gazit used to visit the Sawickis, who greeted him warmly and made him welcome. After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Gazit fled to the Aryan side of the city where Ludwik and his wife, Irena, looked after him. Irena obtained a Christian birth certificate for him, and she and her husband treated him like their own son. Gazit, under his new identity, stayed with the Sawickis for over year, until the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, when Irena passed away. Czesława, who later became Sawicki’s second wife, participated fully in the rescue operation. The Sawickis were members of the enlightened Polish intelligentsia of Warsaw, who identified with the fate of persecuted Jews, and saw helping Jews as a moral and humanitarian duty. After the war, Gazit immigrated to Israel where for many years, he kept up a close tie with Sawicki and his wife, Czesława. On July 27, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Czesława and Ludwik Sawicki, and Ludwik’s first wife, Irena Sawicka, as Righteous Among the Nations.