A Polish woman who protected a Jewish widower and his granddaughter during World War II and later became his wife was honored as a Righteous Gentile last week at the Israeli Embassy.
Lucia Nowicki Eisen, 77, who now will be remembered at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, helped fellow Pole Aisik Eisen escape from a concentration camp by smuggling him clothes belonging to her husband, who was killed during the war. She later provided him with her husband’s identity papers, money and an apartment. They were wed in 1945.
She also took care of Eisen’s granddaughter, Jula, by telling people she was her niece. A second granddaughter, Antonina, was left in a Catholic children’s home and could not be found after the war.
Nowicki Eisen, who came to the U.S. after the war and lived with her husband until his death in 1980, resides in Takoma Park, Md. She was honored by the Israeli Embassy before an audience of some 85 individuals including Jula and her family.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
