Warsaw – A Holocaust survivor from Israel donated money to buy a $1,200 medical bed for a 102-year-old non-Jewish woman from Warsaw, who risked her life to save Jews from the genocide.
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Krystyna Danko, who is now deaf and blind, is among the oldest rescuers still alive.
Joe Erlichster, 75, on Friday said it was “part of our duty as Jews to recognize what some brave souls in Poland and elsewhere did” during World War II.
Before World War II, Danke was an orphan who was taken in a Jewish family named Kokoszko in Otwock near Warsaw. During the war, Danko almost single-handedly rescued all four members of the family, her case file says.
Danko was in 1998 conferred that title Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel’s authority for commemorating the Holocaust. Unusually, Yad Vashem’s website characterizes her efforts as “incredible.”
Jonny Daniels, founder of the From the Depths Holocaust commemoration group, spoke with Danko’s family earlier this week, who told him she’s in need of a bed they cannot afford.
Daniels began a crowd-funding campaign that reached Erlichster, who gave his donation in memory of the Kulinski family. That non-Jewish family saved Erlichster’s own family in Otwock. Other donors included Greg Rodin from Canada.
The bed arrived at Danko’s Warsaw apartment on Thursday.
B”H, a righteous few among the many murderers. We see Hashem blessed her with a long life. May she be comfortable in her new bed.