Spaliński Józef & Spalińska Aniela

SPALIŃSKI, JÓZEF SPALIŃSKA, ANIELA During the war, Józef and Aniela Spaliński were living in the village of Siemianowka, near Lwow. They ran a farm to support themselves and Józef also had a job in the nearby forest. In early December 1942, the Spalińskis met Shimon Kahane and he asked them to shelter his five-year-old daughter, Shifra. Shimon and his wife were living in a forced labor camp near the Spalińskis’ farm, a camp to where a group of Lwow ghetto Jews had been moved. Shimon had turned to the Spalińskis for help because his wife had been deported from there to a concentration camp. The Spalińskis agreed to help and Aniela immediately whisked Shifra from the farm to her house in Siemianowka. About one month later, Shimon joined his daughter at this hideout; Shifra was ostensibly the couple’s adopted child and Shimon hid in the hayloft. Józef and Aniela were childless and they treated Shifra like a daughter. Aniela taught her prayers so that the girl could attend church services, and the following year she started to attend school. Shimon came down into the house at night to wash and eat. “[The Spalińskis] shared everything they had with us,” wrote Shifra Ben-Nun (nee Kahane) in her testimony to Yad Vashem. Aniela was a caring mother, she recalled, and Józef, when he came home from work, spent a lot of time with young Shifra, telling stories. Near the end of the war, Aniela gave birth to a child. Shifra later suggested that they saw it as a reward for the noble deed they did by saving the lives of Shimon and his daughter. After the war, Shimon and Shifra immigrated to Israel and the Spalińskis moved to Dolny Slask. The survivors and their rescuers never lost contact with each other. On January 11, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Józef Spaliński and his wife, Aniela Spalińska, as Righteous Among the Nations.