Wołoszczuk Wojciech

Wołoszczuk, Wojciech Feiga Beder, today Frances Schaff, was born in 1936, the youngest of 10 siblings. Her mother died when Feiga was only 2 years old. She was 5 when the Germans invaded her hometown of Kosów. Shortly after the occupation, she witnessed her father being murdered in the central market of the town as they were on their way to her brother Chaim’s house. She made it there safely and stayed with her brother and his family for several weeks, until the second Aktion (mass execution ), when her brother and his family were taken. Feiga managed to escape but found herself alone. She first turned to the family of Genya, her gentile friend. Genya’s parents allowed her to stay for one night, but in the morning they turned her out. Feiga wandered alone for a while, trying to find someone who would take her in. She remembered overhearing Nissan, her brother, mention the name Wojciech Wołoszczuk, a neighbor and family friend, in whose house he had made arrangements to hide. Feiga managed to get to Wołoszczuk’s house. He agreed to take her in and took her to the hayloft of his barn. There she found Nissan, his wife, and their two children, as well as two other Jews. Conditions on the hayloft were difficult—the space was small and cramped, and it was impossible to stand up. Every night Wołoszczuk or one of the members of the family would bring food up to the hayloft, but as time passed and the war continued, he found it increasingly difficult to provide for both his family and the seven hiding Jews. Nissan decided to leave the hideout at night to try and get food from neighboring homes. Twice he managed to do so, but after going out for the third time he did not come back. His family later learned from Wołoszczuk that he had been captured by the Gestapo, interrogated and tortured, and when he would not reveal where he had been hiding, he was eventually killed. Feiga and the others stayed with Wołoszczuk until the area was liberated. Feiga’s sister-in-lawand her children left the hiding place with Feiga, but they were soon caught and murdered by a gang of local Ukrainian peasants. Weakened by malnutrition and three years of almost motionless sitting in the hayloft, Feiga had lagged behind and was spared. Alone again, she made it to Kraków, where she was taken in by Lena Kuchler’s children’s home, and with this group of children, she eventually immigrated to Israel. In 2009 she traveled back to Kosów to trace her roots and find the man who had saved her. Unfortunately, he had passed away in 1963. On February 6, 2011, Yad Vashem recognized Wojciech Wołoszczuk as Righteous Among the Nations.