Sara sent Salka Horowitz who worked in the store to search among their clients of well-known Polish families for someone who would hide the Landau family. Salka found Anna Kushiotko who agreed to hide them for a short period. The feeling was that after the battle of Stalingrad, the German collapse was imminent. The Polish family’s home, surrounded by a high wall was on the outskirts of the city. In one room with shuttered windows, the Landau family hid along with Salka Horowitz for a year and a half. Many times, they were forced to hide in the dark, airless space under the floorboards without food or drink until the danger passed.
The Kushiotko family took care of the Landaus with dedication. On Passover they allowed the Landaus to Kosher their oven and prepare Kosher matzahs from grain that the Landaus ground in a coffee grinder.
Shmaryahu Landau recited the text of the Haggadah from memory to his son Elimelekh, who wrote and decorated it.
At the end of the war Shmaryahu helped Anna and her two daughters to leave the Soviet area and move to Krakow.
After the war, Elimelekh made his way to Eretz Israel on his own, arriving already in 1945. Tamar was placed in the children’s home run by Sarah Stern-Katan and in 1946 she came to Kvuzat Yavneh. Judah immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1947 and Sara and Shmaryahu followed a year later. Salka Horowitz immigrated to Israel in 1963.
Zdjęcia w artykule: Andrzej Rudiak
Elimelekh and Tamar Landau. Photo: Yad Vashem