YAD VASHEM AWARDED
THE TITLE OF RIGHTEOUS
AMONG THE NATIONS
TO THE POLISH KOPACZ FAMILY
Chairman Dani Dayan, Ms. Agata Czaplińska, Chargé d’affaires ad interim at the Polish Embassy, Dr. Joel Zisenwine - Director of the Righteous Among the Nation Department of Yad Vashem, members of the Kopacz and Nadel families and dear friends, thank you all for being here today — a day that I have dreamed about for many years.
Let me take you back in time to 1910, when two young girls who living in small neighboring villages in Austrian partitioned Poland started grade one in the same school. The school was located in a village named Trzcieniec. One girl was a Polish Catholic named, Rozalia Duda. She lived in Lacka Wola. The other girl was a Polish Jewish girl, named Mincia Berg. She lived in Trzcieniec. Rozalia was the grandmother of Barbara, Stanislawa and Boguslaw, who are here with us today, together with their children, Tomasz, Lukasz and Piotr.
Mincia was my grandmother, the mother of my uncle, Tully, and the grandmother of my cousins Mark, Renaand Avi, who are all with us here today, together with their children and grandchildren. Rozalia came from a poor home. Mincia’s father, my great grandfather, Kopel Berg, after whom I am named, owned the general store in Trzcieniec. Rozalia and Mincia became friends. Mincia often gave Rozalia half of her lunch sandwich because Mincia saw that Rozalia’s parents often did not give her enough food for lunch. Some years after World War I, when Poland reappeared on the map of Europe, Rozalia married Michal Kopacz, a young man from Lacka Wola. Mincia married a young man who had recently been discharged from the Polish Army. His name was Majer Nadel. He was my grandfather. Rozalia and Michal had 4 children. Mincia and Majer had three children. Michal got a job working for Mincia’s father. They were all friends.
84 years ago, on September 1, 1939, their lives changed forever. Germany attacked Poland from the west. 17 days later, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east. Hitler and Stalin agreed to carve up Poland. The quiet villages of Trzcieniec and Lacka Wola came under Soviet occupation.
Majer Nadel was inducted into the Soviet army. While in the Soviet army, a Polish man, named “Punio” Serwaczak, was accused by the Soviets of espionage. Majer told the Soviets that Punio is just a simple Polish man. Majer saved Punio’s life.
On June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union and capturered Trzceienc and Lacka Wola. The Germans set up a labor camp in Trzieniec where the Nadel and Berg families were imprisoned. Punio was appointed by the Germans as the village head.
Then one day in early October 1942, Punio found out that the Germans were planning to liquidate the labor camp and send all the Jews to their deaths. Punio sent his wife to warn the Nadel and Berg families. Punio’s wife walked around the camp and sang a song in Polish, the words of which she madeup: “Tomorrow, the dolls will be sent away.”
That night Majer Nadel broke open the lock to the camp’s gate and everyone escaped in different directions. Desperately seeking shelter from the Germans, the Nadels ran to Rozalia and Michal Kopacz’s farmhouse in Lacka Wola. With no questions asked and for no offer of money or promise of money, the Kopacz’s let in Mincia and Majer Nadel, my 8 year old uncle, Tully, my 9 year old mother, Sara, their 3 year old sister, Chana, and Mincia’s youngest brother, Runio. Shortly afterwards, another Jewish couple, the Usher’s joined themselves into the house – a total of 8 Jews.
One would say that by opening their homes to these 8 Jews and providing them with shelter, that the Kopacz’s were doing a good deed. The Kopacz’s were following their Catholic teachings. But what needs to be understood is that by allowing these 8 Jews into their home, the Kopacz’s did something dramatically different than Righteous gentiles in Holland, France, Hungary or any other country did to save the lives of Jews during the Shoah. Rozalia and Michal Kopacz were risking their own lives and the lives of their 4 children.
For all over German-occupied Poland, there were posters stating that “Any Pole that admits a Jew with him or affords him shelter, accommodation or hiding, will be shot. Any Pole who aids a Jew in any way, found outside his residential district or ghetto, will be shot. Any Pole who even attempts to carry out these aforementioned acts, will be shot.” Notwithstanding the threat to their own lives, Rozalia and Michal Kopacz refused to be indifferent to human suffering. They followed their Christian values and their hearts in determining to risk their own lives and the lives of their 4 sons.
This is one of the most inhumane laws that one could ever imagine. To murder a person
On 10 September, Yad Vashem awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations to the Polish Kopacz family, who risked their lives to save the lives of Jeffrey Cymbler's family: his mother, uncle, aunt, grandparents, great-grandfather and two other Jews from the Usher family. Before the war, his family lived in Kruhel Pelkin. Here is a transcript of the speech that Jeffrey Cymbler gave at the synagogue at Yad Vashem.
Jeffrey Cymbler