Bakoniewska Emilia ; Husband: Kuczaty Karol

Kuczaty Karol Kuczaty-Bakoniewska Emilia Five Jews from Rybnik owe their lives to Karol and Emilia Kuczaty, a farmer couple that lived in the village Radlin-Ogrodzenie in Górno county, in the Kielce district. In 1942, when all the Jews of the vicinity were ordered to move to the Kielce ghetto, Natan Friedenberg asked Kuczaty to shelter him on his farm. After a few days, with his wife’s consent, Kuczaty agreed to add four others to the hiding place - Friedenberg’s sister Mania Kapuszczewska, her four-year-old son, along with the two children of his other sister, whose parents had found shelter in a neighboring village. All five Jewish refugees were given warm, caring treatment, and until their liberation by the Red Army in January 1945, they were looked after and fed by the Kuczatys, who received nothing in return. Throughout the entire period of their stay in the hiding places, there were frequently tense moments of great anxiety because of the fear that someone might discover they were hiding at the Kuczatys’ farm. The Germans occasionally conducted searches for Jews in the vicinity and the Kuczatys realized they were taking a great risk. Nonetheless, Kuczaty and his wife continued to follow the dictates of their conscience and to shelter the Jewish refugees until they were liberated. After the war, the five members of the Friedenberg family immigrated to the United States and invited Emilia Kuczaty to be a guest in their home. On January 2, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Karol Kuczaty and his wife Emilia Kuczaty-Bakoniewska as Righteous Among the Nations. File 4835