Strusiński Zygmunt & Strusińska Wiktoria ; Daughter: Bylica Irena (Strusińska)

Strusiński, Zygmunt Strusińska, Wiktoria Bylica-Strusińska, Irena The Strusińskis of Luck (Volhynia district) belonged to the liberal Polish intelligentsia. Zygmunt Strusiński, an attorney, was a well-known public figure in Luck; Dr. Wiktoria Strusińska, his wife, was a physician who spent the war working at a local hospital, where she befriended Tatiana Goldstein, a young Jewish physician. One day in the summer of 1942, Dr. Strusińska warned Goldstein that the Germans were about to liquidate the local ghetto. She urged Goldstein to escape from the ghetto at once, along with her husband Faivel, and offered to shelter them in her home. Shortly before the ghetto was liquidated, the Goldsteins fled to the Strusińskis, where they hid in a firewood storage shed. Eventually Dr. Schneiberg and Dr. Marek Rubinstein and his wife, who had fled from the ghetto and wandered at great length before finally finding refuge at the Strusiński home, joined them. When winter came, the fugitives suffered from severe cold in the shed. Although aware of the danger of hiding Jews, the Strusińskis invited all five into their home and subsequently built them a hideout in their cellar. Since Dr. Strusińska worked outside the home, her husband Zygmunt and their seventeen-year-old daughter Irena shouldered the burden of caring for the hiding Jews. On August 19, 1943, the Germans arrested Zygmunt Strusiński along with a group of Polish intellectuals and executed him. This left the responsibility for the fugitives’ care to Strusińska and her daughter. Even when the Strusińskas’ economic circumstances worsened and everyone in the household suffered from hunger, their humane attitude toward the Jews in their care did not change. They shared with them such meager food as they could obtain and refused the fugitives’ offer of their jewelry to pay for their upkeep. Strusińska did take the jewels into her possession but only on deposit; after the war, she returned them to their owners. TheStrusińskas, along with their wards, experienced much hardship until the liberation in the spring of 1944, and their actions were prompted by purely humanitarian motives with no material interest. After the war, the survivors supported Dr. Strusińska and after she migrated to the Polish interior, arranged a job for her. The Goldsteins, who settled in Israel, stayed in touch with her and in 1963 invited her for a lengthy stay at their home. On January 24, 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Zygmunt Strusiński and his wife, Dr. Wiktoria Strusińska, as Righteous Among the Nations. On October 11, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized the Strusińskis’ daughter, Irena Bylica-Strusińska, as Righteous Among the Nations.