Wolański Karol

Wolański, Karol Chana and Moses Nurnberg had three daughters: Betka (b. 1919), Regina (b. 1921), and Malcia (b. 1924). They lived in Buczacz, Poland (today Ukraine); Regina went to school and hoped to study pharmacy at university. Instead, with the outbreak of the war, she was married at age 18 to Hersch Fenster and had a daughter named Lucy the same year. The Fensters moved from Buczacz to Tłuste, where they ended up in the ghetto. After leaving the ghetto in 1942, they moved around in search of a safer place. Little Lucy was placed in a convent in Czerwonogrod, where she survived the war, so they only needed a place for the two of them. A Ukrainian family took them in but soon asked them to leave again because they feared being discovered hiding Jews. Hersch found Chana and Avrum, his sister and brother-in-law, living with their little daughter, Esther, in the stables of well-off farmers, the Wolański family. Avrum arranged for the Fensters to join them temporarily, but Hersch was caught and killed one day, so only Regina stayed with them. The hideout was a small underground opening, without light, with a removable lid through which food could be passed. Regina spent her time knitting sweaters from cord, doing mending, and teaching mathematics and other school subjects to Esther and the Wolańskis’ young son, Edik. Although the family did sometimes give Karol Wolański valuables to exchange for additional food, the stay and the basic nourishment they received were not in any way conditional on any sort of reward. After the war the Wolańskis even tried to convince Regina, for her own safety, to convert to Catholicism and stay with them, but she refused. She collected her daughter and with considerable effort managed to cross several borders and reach the American Zone in Germany. In the process, she lost contact with the Wolańskis. Eventually, Regina and the rest of the Nurnberg family immigrated to the United States. On June 10, 2014, Yad Vashem recognized Karol Wolański as Righteous Among the Nations.