Hončík Vladimír & Hončíková Maria

Honcík, Vladimír Honcíková, Maria Sonia Samson (later Steinberg) was born in Rowne in 1931. Following the annexation of eastern Poland by the Russians, her father was recruited to the Red Army. When the Germans conquered the area in 1941, the Jews were concentrated in the ghetto, among them Sonia, her mother, and her younger brother, Benjamin. In early November of that year, the Samsons were marched along with about 17,000 of the ghetto residents to an unknown destination, under the pretext of being moved to another ghetto. They were taken to the Sosenki murder site. Once there, with a push from her mother, Sonia gathered her courage and turned to two of the guards and told them that she was a Ukrainian girl that had accidentally intermingled with the convoy while walking in her village to get bread. They believed her and one of them led her to the nearest farmhouse where a few ss soldiers were resting, among them a doctor. Sonia’s story was accepted here as well. She introduced herself by the name Pachcek – the name of Czech farmers she knew whose address she remembered. The SS officer doctor promised to take her home in two days. When Sonia and the doctor arrived at the Pachcek family home, the farmer claimed that she did not know the girl at all. Sonia explained that her “mother’s” response to the ss officer was for fear of being killed. In response, the embarrassed doctor suggested that she take the girl into her home. She agreed. However, the following day, the farmer asked Sonia to leave the house and to return temporarily to her old and locked house in Rowne until she could find a refuge for her. Pachcek then asked Vladimír and Maria Honcík in the village of Glinsk Czeski to shelter Sonia and they agreed. From that day on, Sonia lived the life of a country girl. She helped with the household chores, took care of baby Mariška, herded the cows to pasture, and even learned how to milk them. In times of danger, Sonia was hidden in the potato storeroom.Following the liberation of the area, Honcík enrolled in a Czech unit of the Red Army. The running of the farm became the job of Maria and Sonia. At the end of the war, Honcík wrote to Maria telling her that he had bought a farm in the Czech Republic and that she should make all the necessary arrangements to move to the new place. Sonia received a message from Rowne saying that her father had been demobilized and was looking for her. Sonia’s parting from her wartime family was very difficult. Sonia and her father immigrated to Israel, from where Sonia contacted her wartime rescuers and remained in touch with them for years. After the summer of 1968, due to political turns in the Honcínks’ country, the relationship was severed. Sonia managed to visit the Honciks in 1992. On June 29, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Vladimír Honcík and his wife, Maria Honcíková, as Righteous Among the Nations.