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“No Prayer,
No Breakfast”
by Dr. Mordechai Paldiel
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Left to right: Dina (Merin) Farber, Felicja Szwajcer and
Professor Saul Merin at the ceremony honoring Righteous Among
the Nations Aniela (Zawadzka) Szwajcer |
In a moving ceremony at Yad Vashem
on 23 November, Felicja Szwajcer received a medal and certificate
designating her late mother Aniela (Zawadzka) Szwajcer as
“Righteous Among the Nations.”
Aniela’s story began over 60 years
ago, before the onset of the Second World War, when she worked as
a domestic help in the Merin household, in the town of Bedzin,
southwest Poland. After the Germans established a ghetto in the
town, Aniela moved to an abandoned house where she awaited news of
her former employers. On 3 August 1943, the Merin family was
gathered at the train station along with the other Jews of the
town for deportation to Auschwitz. At their parents’ urgings,
their two children—Saul, aged 10 and Dina, 8—fled the ramp and
escaped to Aniela’s home. There they joined their uncle Wolf
Szwajcer, who was already in hiding.
Aniela managed to keep her three Jewish charges secret—even from
her own family—for almost a year and a half, until the Russians
liberated the area in January 1945. To feed them, she worked as a
cook in a factory producing uniforms for the German army. She also
secretly went to the destroyed ghetto where, according to the
Merins’ instructions, she unearthed hidden jewelry and gold coins,
which she used to bribe would-be informers. During the long period
of hiding, Aniela acted as a surrogate mother to Saul and Dina,
tending to their physical needs as well as lifting their spirit.
“Words are not sufficient to describe the humanitarian and noble
conduct of Aniela,” recalled Dina Farber (née Merin) at the
ceremony, “as well as the risks she took to save two Jewish
children, as well as her future husband.” Indeed, after the war
Aniela and Wolf married and moved to Italy, together with their
newborn daughter, Felicja. Saul and Dina, now orphans, made their
way to Israel.
Professor Saul Merin, today a
leading ophthalmologist, remembers arriving at Aniela’s house: “I
was very angry with God for allowing such things to happen. So I
threw away my kippa (skullcap), and would not touch my
cousin’s siddur (prayer book). Two days after my arrival,
Aniela, an observant Polish Catholic, asked me if I had prayed.
When I answered ‘no,’ she told me: ‘No prayer, no breakfast.’ She
made me recite Modeh Ani (the prayer said on awakening in
the morning) every day I was there.”
The author is Director of the Righteous Among the Nations
Department
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
