Gorajek Józef

Gorajek, Józef In 1942, after escaping from the Warsaw ghetto, Danuta Winnik and her seven-year-old son, Eugeniusz, arrived in the village of Niezabitow, in the Lublin district, where Józef Gorajek served as a Catholic priest. Despite her “Aryan” appearance and forged papers, the peasants suspected Winnik and her son of being Jewish. Gorajek, who took them under his wing, undertook to baptize the child, but before he could do so, a group of villagers protested, claiming that the child was Jewish. Gorajek, however, stuck by his assertion that the child was Christian. When Eugeniusz’s mother had to leave the village for a while, Gorajek took care of the child. The fact that the Winniks survived until the liberation without being betrayed or attacked by the local villagers was only thanks to the religious authority Gorakjek wielded among them. In endangering his life to help Winnik and her son, Gorajek was guided by sincere humanitarian and religious motives. After the war, Winnik and her son immigrated to the United States. Forty-five years later, Eugeniusz came to Poland to visit Father Gorajek. When he thanked him for all he had done on his behalf, Gorajek answered: “I do not need gratitude, but what I would like is to have a tree in Israel planted in my name.” On June 19, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Father Józef Gorajek as Righteous Among the Nations.