Gertruda Bablinska

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Gertruda Bablinska ( Polish: Gertruda Babilińska ; * 1902 in Prussian Stargard ; † 1995 in Israel ) was a Polish nanny who saved the life of the orphaned Jewish boy Michał Stołowicki . In 1963 Gertruda Bablinska was named Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

Tree in the name of Gertruda Babilińska in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations , Yad Vashem

Gertruda Bablinska was the oldest of eight children in a Catholic family, her father worked for the post office. At the age of nineteen she went to Warsaw and worked as a nanny for a Jewish family whose survivors emigrated to Palestine after the end of the war and offered to come with them. She initially decided to stay in Poland and arrived in Israel in 1948.

Warsaw

She continued to work as a nanny in Warsaw, now for Jacob Stołowicki's family. He was the only son of Moshe Stołowicki, who had made a considerable fortune by trading in steel, which he supplied to the Russian railways.

Gertruda Bablinska supervised the first-born daughter of Jacob Stołowicki and his wife Lidia. The girl died early, from then on Gertruda Bablinska took care of Lidia Stołowicka, who was suffering and ailing from the death of her child. The son Michał Stołowicki was born in 1936; Gertruda Bablinska took over his education. As in 1939 with the invasion of Poland of the Second World War began, Jacob Stołowicki held for business in Paris on. He could not return to Poland and was later murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Vilna

Lidia Stołowicka and Gertruda Bablinska hoped to find refuge with Michał in Vilnius and set off with Emil, the family's chauffeur . Emil robbed them on the way and threw them out of the vehicle. They finally reached their destination by horse and cart . In Vilnius, Gertruda Bablinska, who spoke German , provided translations for the essentials of life. Lidia Stołowicka suffered from depression , in 1941 she suffered a stroke . She gave Gertruda Bablinska her wedding ring, asked her to raise her son as a Jew and bring him to Palestine, where she had distant relatives. Lidia Stołowicka died in April 1941 and was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Vilnius . Gertruda Bablinska raised Michał Stołowicki like her own son. He asked her if he should address her as mother. However, she wanted him not to lose the memory of his birth mother. Michał Stołowicki called her from then on "Mamusia" (Eng. Mutti ).

After Vilnius was occupied by German troops who established the Vilnius ghetto in September 1941 , Gertruda Bablinska decided to stay in her small apartment with Michał Stołowicki. She procured forged papers and a baptismal certificate for the child and registered them as her nephew . In addition, she helped other refugees with her knowledge of German.

In 1944 Gertruda Bablinska, who was tall and blonde , and Michał Stołowicki, who was then seven years old, were stopped on the street by German soldiers. Two of them grabbed the boy and tried to pull his pants down to see if he was circumcised . Gertruda Bablinska said in German: “What are you doing? My son is not a Jew! ” SS officer Karl Rink intervened and said:“ Leave him alone, he is not a Jew. ”Later Gertruda Bablinska and Michał Stołowicki found out that Rink had been married to a Jew who had been murdered , and that his daughter Helga-Elisheva had been smuggled into Palestine and that he had also helped other Jews.

Return to Poland

After the end of the Second World War , Gertruda Bablinska returned to Poland with Michał Stołowicki. They lived with Bablinska's family in Starogard. In order to fulfill Lidia Stołowicka's wish, she wanted to bring Michał to Palestine, which her family tried to keep her from. They joined Jewish refugees and lived temporarily in a camp for displaced persons . Members of the Hagana pledged Bablinska to bring the child to Palestine and to take care of it. Still, she insisted on staying with him.

Israel

Gertruda Bablinska and Michał Stołowicki boarded the Exodus in France in 1947 , Bablinska being the only non-Jewish passenger. After the ship was seized by the British naval blockade off Palestine, Bablinska and Stołowicki were brought back to Germany as part of Operation Oasis and again housed in a camp for displaced persons .

They finally reached Israel in 1948. They lived in Jaffa , where Bablinska worked as a cleaning lady and provided Michał Stołowicki's upbringing and schooling. He later moved to New York , wrote his name in the US Michael Stolowitzky, married twice and had a son. Gertruda Bablinska stayed in Israel. On June 4, 1963, she was named Righteous Among the Nations. Michael Stolowitzky flew to Israel every month to visit her whenever possible. She spent the last years of her life in Nahariya in Beit Luckner, a home for the Righteous Among the Nations. Michael Stolowitzky was with her when she died in 1995. Due to a mix-up, Gertruda Bablinska was buried both Jewish and Catholic.

Aftermath

Barbra Streisand produced the television film Rescuers - Die Geschichte der Helden (1997, also Rescuers: Stories of Courage: Two Women ), directed by Peter Bogdanovich , in which Elizabeth Perkins took on the role of Gertruda Bablinska. Ram Oren wrote the book For you I dared to do it in 2007 about the life of Gertruda Bablinska and her foster son Michał Stołowicki.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Amia Lieblich: A promise kept . In: Haaretz online from September 13, 2007 (English)
  2. ↑ a b c My nanny saved me from the Nazis In: New York Post of November 25, 2009 (English)
  3. ↑ Na'ama Lanski: 'Tell my daughter her father was not a murderer' . In: Haaretz online from July 19, 2007 (English)
  4. ↑ Barbra Streisand at IMdB
  5. ↑ Rescuers - The story of the hero in the Internet Movie Database (English)
personal data
SURNAME Bablinska, Gertruda
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gertruda Babilińska; Babilinsḳah, Gerṭrudah
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish nanny and Righteous Among the Nations
DATE OF BIRTH 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Starogard Gdański
DATE OF DEATH 1995
Place of death Israel