Szumielewicz Wiktoria ; Husband: Stanisław

Wiktoria and Stanisław Szumielewicz When World War II broke out, the Nisencwaig family from Staszow, Poland, numbered 18 members. Only two of them survived the Holocaust. This is the story of the survival of one of them. Eva Nisencwaig was 3 years old when Germany occupied Poland in 1939. Her family tried to endure the difficult situation of Jews as best as they could, but in the summer of 1941, Moshe and Hena Nisencwaig became aware of the imminent danger to their lives. They took the painful decision to part from their five-year-old daughter and to put her in the care of Polish friends, Wiktoria and Stanisław Szumielewicz, who had a farm in Ritviana. In her testimony to Yad Vashem, Eva Nisencwaig-Bergstein wrote: "I was only three years old when the war broke out and therefore my testimony cannot supply you with exact dates, but I can assure you that the course of events made an indelible impact on my memory, not to be erased for the rest of my life. Although I was physically a child, my happy childhood was as abruptly and unmercifully taken from me as was my entire family…. " The couple took the child in, presented the little girl as their niece, and eventually also took in Eva's two cousins. But the reunion with her cousins didn't last long. First Janek and then his sister Lucy disappeared again. Eva, who had painfully grown used to her being with Szumielewicz, also had to leave. When a farm worker informed the Germans about the Jewish children at the Szumielewicz home, she was once again torn away from the now familiar surroundings and brought to a convent. Wiktoria Szumielewicz continued to watch from a distance, and when the convent was destroyed in a bombing, she took Eva back. To avoid detection they moved from one place to another until liberation. After the war Eva stayed with the couple until her uncle, the only other survivor of her family, came to find her after the war. Both her parents had perished. Parting from the Szumielewiczes was very hard. " One day Wiktoria told me about an aunt in Canada…. She also said that my uncle Henryk had survived and was here in the house waiting to take me away. I did not want to hear about it and locked myself in my room until he finally left. I did not want to be a Jew again, now that my parents were dead. Uncle Henryk returned again…. I hardly recognized him. He looked like an old, defeated man…. He convinced me that my parents were waiting for me…. I was torn who to believe. I trusted Wiktoria but this was my own uncle…. I was nine years old and had to make a very important decision. Wiktoria insisted that she told me the truth and that Henryk was making up an outrageous story to get me away from her…. I decided to go to Krakow with my Uncle Henryk. I could not give up the flicker of hope that my parents are alive…." In 1947 Eva went to live with relatives in Canada. She never forgot Wiktoria and kept in touch with her until her death. Her eldest granddaughter is named after her rescuer. In 1974, when visiting Israel, Eva went to Yad Vashem and enquired about the possibility to have her rescuers honored as Righteous Among the Nations. It took her another six years to write down her detailed testimony. On August 28, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Wiktoria and Stanisław Szumielewicz, as Righteous Among the Nations. A tree was planted in the Avenue of the Righteous.