Nov. 28, 2004 - 17:25 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Final Reunion

Funny, it seems that some of the important things about people show up only in the "special interest" articles in the media. Something to read, shake one's head about and forget. But I don't want to forget.

For instance there was an article by Joseph Berger of The New York Times in our Rocky Mountain News of Saturday November 27, in part:

Survivor finds long lost savior

'Sister' helped boy escape Holocaust

NEW YORK -- "During World War Two, three Polish sisters got the chance to have a little brother: a six-year-old Jewish boy named Andre Nowacki, who with his mother, hid from the Nazis in their Warsaw apartment for two and a half years."

"They taught Andre proper Polish, gave him their cowboy-and-Indian novels to read and beat him at cards and chess."

"One day, when the Gestapo knocked on the door, they hid him under their bed and bounced on it as a distraction."

"When the war was over, the sisters and Andre promised that they would find each other."

"This week, after almost 60 years, Nowacki, now a 68-year-old food chemist who lives in Long beach, N.Y., got to meet the sole surviving sister, Hanna Morawiecka in a reunion at Kennedy International Airport arranged by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. The organization honors non-Jews wo gambled their lives to hide Jews during he Holocaust and provides support payments for 1,600 of them.

"The two childhood friends embraced in tears, and Nowacki gave Morawiecka, a 74-year-old costume and set designer in the Polish film industry, a bouquet of pink and orange carnations."

"The two will spend the next two weeks catching up, getting to know each other's families and doing touristy things. They said they also would try once again to understand an abiding mystery: why Morawiecka's mother, Janina Kwiecinska, took such risks."

"In today's world, in the 21st century, in this selfish world, you'll never find an answer," Nowacki said. "You have to go back to Poland in 1942 and find somebody."

"Morawiecka put it more simply. "My mother had a good heart, a big heart," she said in Polish , with Nowacki translating."

"When the Germans invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Nowacki was a young boy named Solomon Tejblum with middle-class parents who owned a sweater-knitting factory in Warsaw. The confinement of Jews forced his father to turn the factory over to a Polish employee, who kept them on as workers, Nowacki said."

"Sensing what was ahead, his father got forged identification papers for his wife and son, who became Helena and Andre Nowacki. He tried to send them to Hungary, but was arrested and later shot to death."

"Nowacki and his mother escaped to Otwock, a resort town."

"Morawiecka's mother was an actress, and her father, a Polish military officer, had been picked up by the Gestapo. (He survived the war but never returned to the family.) Morawiecka's mother had a lover, though, who lived in the apartment and whom Nowacki remembers was "gracious."

"At times, other Jews hid there too, but Nowacki's focus was on the three sandy-haired sisters: 14-year-old twins Janina and Marysia, and 11-year-old Hanna. The girls went to school during the day, but Nowacki never left the apartment, except once: to see the girls in a school play."

"Morawiecka confided at the reunion that as a child, she harbored mixed feelings toward Andre because of the dangers he posed for her family."

"At times, she loved me, and at times she disliked me," Nowacki said, translating for her. "She was afraid for her life at times."

"By 1944, with the Allies bombing Warsaw and Polish partisans rising, the Nazis began bombing apartment houses and rounding up non-Jews. The Kwiecinskas and their Jewish wards were among the women and children dispatched to the countryside, but they broke away and ended up with relatives on a farm 100 miles from Warsaw."

"When the farm was liberated on Jan. 18, 1945, the children said farewell and exchanged notes."

"Nowacki and his mother ended up in Lodz, but in 1950 they immigrated to Israel. In 1975, he came to New York. Since then, he has searched for Morawiecka and he sisters. In the 198Os, he asked the retired father of a Polish colleague to undertake a search, and he located Morawiecka."

"They have been speaking by telephone regularly since then, mostly reminiscing about the war years."

"While many Jews who survived the war harbor bitterness toward the Poles because many collaborated in the slaughter of 3 million Polish Jews, Nowacki said he did not share such feelings."

"I cannot have this hatred, because I was saved by a Polish family," he said."

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It seems to me that there is the makings of at least two books in that article.

I guess most people here, except those who were raised in families whose Dad or Uncle was in World War Two and saw the realities of things and communicated to the children the facts, have the idea that the Holocaust was overblown blather. But it was not, not only Jews but other people were victims of the holocaust as well. I had classmates in school who were from Germany during that time. They never talked about "back home" or of family, just kept the conversation on the subject of "now."

The courage of a family who harbored "hunted" refugees, knowing from observation how others were treated for doing the same thing is almost beyond imagination.

If not sudden death, then the concentration camps or worse for any who acted against the cruel philosophy of the "Master Race."

The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous to my mind is a wonderful organization, trying to do the most good for those who suffered being Physically and mentally punished by the cruelties of The Holocaust.

Although there is a tad of Jewish blood in my veins and call myself the Wondering Jew, I am a "goy" I think the term is, a Gentile. But one who has delved into the infamies of the Nazis as deeply as he could.

The instinctive love of one human for another and the willingness to shelter, nurture that/those persons regardless of the danger is something I truly wish could be hereditary or could be gene-injected at birth.

Of course, there was only one perfect man -- and he was crucified. Among the things in my wishing and praying is for kindness, compassion, helpfulness toward others, especially for those in need.

The age of the two Polish folk in the newspaper article have physically met in what might be their Final Reunion . . . . . . . .

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