for attempting to save someone’s life! Such a law is a crime against humanity.
Today is a very special day for the Kopacz family and for the Nadel family. It is the day that we, the Nadel family, can affirm in public that none of us would be alive today if not for the dangerous risks that the Kopacz family took upon themselves 81 years ago. Neither I, nor my three cousins, nor their 20 children and 12 grandchildren should have been born if Hitler had his way with our parents.
The Kopacz’s were indeed Righteous Among the Nations, the Kopacz’s were our saving angels. The Kopacz’s are Polish national heroes, and they will go down in history books as such.
It is very auspicious that Yad Vashem chose today to honor the Kopacz family, because today in Poland another Polish family, the Ulma family, which was bestowed the honor of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem on September 15, 1995, are being recognized by the Vatican and beatified.
Beatification in the Catholic Church is a declaration by the Pope that a dead martyr is just step away from before being declared as a saint.
Only approximately 50 kilometers away from the Kopacz family farmhouse, there existed another farmhouse in the village of Markowa. In that village, Victoria and Jozef Ulma, another Polish Catholic family with 6 children, were hiding 8 members of the Goldman family.
The Germans found out and on March 24, 1944, the Germans caught all the Jews and shot them Then the Germans took Victoria, who was 7 months pregnant, and Jozef and shot them. The 6 Ulma children began to scream at the sight of their parents’ dead bodies. The German police then shot all 6 of the children.
My uncle and I, together with my cousins and some of their children, visited the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in Markowa last year. Looking at the enlarged photograph of the Ulma farmhouse, my uncle pointed to the side of the building and showed us where he was hiding in the Kopacz house.
I asked my uncle what would have happened if the Germans found out that he and his family were hiding in the Kopacz house. My uncle immediately responded that he and the whole family would have been shot on the spot together with Rozalia and Michal Kopacz and their 4 sons.
For 22 months, 670 days, each and every day, hour and minute the Kopacz’s endangered their lives and the lives of their 4 sons just like the Ulma family did. The Kopacz’s exhibited the true Christian spirit of love thy neighbor as thyself.
In the Torah portion that we read yesterday in the synagogue, it states that God gives us all freedom of choice. The scripture says: “I have set before you life and goodness, and death and evil: in that I command you this day to love God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments. Life and death. I have set before you, blessing and curse. And you shall choose life and your offspring will live.”
On that day in October 1942, the Kopacz’s were faced with a choice, life or death. Send the Nadel family away to certain death or risk their own lives and walk in the ways of God and choose life for both the Nadel and Kopacz families.
In yesterday’s Torah reading, God gives us the commandment of “Hakel”, to gather every 7 years the entire people of Israel – men, women and children—should gather at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, where the king should read the Torah. Today we are all gathered here in Jerusalem – 4 generations of the Nadel family and 3 generations of the Kopacz family.
The Torah portion continues with God stating “when I bring them to the land which I have sworn to their forefathers to give to them, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Today I and the entire Nadel family are honored to have brought the Kopacz family here, to see the land that God has chosen and promised to us, so that they can see this beautiful land and so that they can share its milk and honey with us. You, the Kopacz family, are our family. We welcome you here with our open hearts. We hope that today’s ceremony and long overdo recognition of Rozalia and Michal Kopacz will act as an unbroken bond between our two families and our two nations.
Rozalia and Mincia were sisters in their souls and hearts. I know that today, they are here in our presence looking down from up on high, together with Michal and Majer, and Father Zygmunt Dziedziak and Rozalia’s sister, Marianna Kowalska, and they are smiling upon us all.
We, the entire Nadel family love you, Kopacz family from the bottoms of our hearts. You gave each and every one of us life. Thank you, thank you, thank you and may God bless you forever.