US/World News

Israeli Holocaust survivor helps buy hospital bed for Polish rescuer

(JTA) – 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. Krystyna Danko, who is now deaf and blind, is among the oldest rescuers still alive. Joe Erlichster, 75, on July 19 said it was “part of our duty as Jews to recognize what some brave souls in Poland and elsewhere did.” Before World War II, Danko was an orphan who was taken in by a Jewish family named Kokoszko in Otwock near Warsaw. During the war, Danko almost single-handedly rescued all four members of the family. Danko was in 1998 conferred the 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.

Main Photo: Krystyna Danko receiving flowers from Jonny Daniels on in her apartment in Warsaw, Poland on her 102nd birthday on July 9, 2019. (From the Depths)

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