Skinderowa Helena (Iwanowska)

Kornecka-Iwanoska, Anna Iwanowska, Sabina Skinderowa-Iwanowska, Helena Danilewicz, Adolf The sisters Maria and Emma Altberg had known the Iwanowski family since their childhood in Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania). A special friendship was formed between Maria Altberg and Anna Iwanoska-Kornecka at the beginning of the war. In September 1941, with the creation of the Vilna ghetto, Anna advised the Altberg sisters not to go into the ghetto and offered them a hiding place with her mother Sabina Iwanoska and her aunt Helena Skinderowa-Iwanoska on the Rohaczowszczyzna estate near Szczuczyn (Białystok District). The estate administrator, Adolf Danilewicz, was taken in on the secret. He brought the two Jewish sisters to the family estate in his cart by indirect routes. The mother Sabina and the aunt Helena received the two women warmly. Maria stayed there about two months and decided to continue on to Warsaw. It was the aunt Helena who, thanks to her connections and her command of German, managed to arrange her safe passage to Warsaw where she hid and survived the war. Her sister Emma remained at the estate and hid intermittently with Sabina and Helena until the liberation of the area in 1944. For years, Helena did not consider that she was to be praised for her actions during the Nazi occupation. Only following the request of the survivor, Maria, did she agree, before her death, to receive the title of Righteous Among the Nations. On October 22, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Anna Iwanowska-Kornecka, her mother Sabina Iwanowska, Helena Skinderowa-Iwanowska and Adolf Danilewicz as Righteous Among the Nations.