Wladyslawa Choms
Władysława Laryssa Choms (* 1895 in Poland ; † August 28, 1966 ) belonged to the Polish resistance movement Żegota during the German occupation of Poland and organized extensive help for the Jewish population, who gave it the nickname "Angel of Lwow". In 1966, she was named Righteous Among the Nations and planted a tree in Yad Vashem , Jerusalem .
Life in resistance
Even before the start of the war in 1939 , Choms, who was herself a Catholic , campaigned against the growing anti-Semitism in Drohobycz and Lwów, which were then Polish . At the beginning of the war she joined the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (later known as the Polish Home Army ), while her husband Fryderyk, an officer in the Polish army, and her son volunteered in the British Army.
After the German occupation of Lwów in the summer of 1941 and the associated establishment of a ghetto , Choms began to participate in the smuggling of food and medicines for the internees. In addition, she organized an aid fund to finance other activities, such as the accommodation of children and adults in safe havens or the production of forged papers.
Towards the end of 1942 she was given the task of organizing and managing a local branch of the Żegota in Lwów. Thus it came increasingly in the sights of the German occupiers. To avoid capture, she fled to Warsaw at the end of 1943, where she continued her work. In 1944 she returned to Lwów.
Zygmunt Chotiner, one of her rescued, wrote in 1952:
“I am deely convinced that there are no adequate words to describe what she undertook to accomplish and what ahe had to suffer for the assistance given to us Jews. She is woman of an ardent heart, noble and unblemished, and all of us who know her feel deeply indebted to her for all that she did for us and for the fact that she risked her own life so that ours might be saved. "
“I am deeply convinced that there are no suitable words to describe what she did and what she suffered in order to help us Jews. She is a fiery hearted woman, generous and flawless, and all of us who know her are deeply indebted to her for all that she has done for us and for the fact that she risked her own life, ours can possibly be saved. "
Web links
swell
- Władysław Bartoszewski, Zofia Lewinówna (eds.): Righteous among nations: How Poles helped the Jews, 1939-1945 . Earlscourt Publications Ltd, London 1969.
- Joshua Zimmermann: The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945 . Cambridge University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-1-107-01426-8 , pp. 312-313 .
- Eberhard Jäckel , Peter Longerich , Julius H. Schoeps (eds.): Encyclopedia of the Holocaust . Piper, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-492-22700-7 .
Individual evidence
- ^ The Righteous Among The Nations. Retrieved August 16, 2015 .
- ^ The Righteous Among the Nations Department. Retrieved August 17, 2015 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Choms, Wladyslawa |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Choms, Władysława Laryssa |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish resistance fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1895 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Poland |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 28, 1966 |