Shraga Feivel Bielawski (Philip Biel) owned a clothing store and lumber yard in Vengrov prior to the war. He is the author of a book entitled The Last Jew from Wegrow: The Memoirs of a Survivor of the Step-by-Step Genocide in Poland [edited by Louis W. Liebovich (New York: Praeger Publishing, 1991); 184 pages plus photographs]. According to the publisher's blurb: "From his earliest memories of a closely knit community where Jews and Christians lived harmoniously side by side through the horrors of a town torn apart by hatred, Shraga Bielawski details the systematic destruction of Wegrow by the Nazis." The book is expensive to buy, but is available in many libraries. Shraga Feivel Bielawski emigrated to the US in 1951, changed his name to Philip Biel, and died in Minnesota in 2004. His personal archive was donated to the University of Minnesota.
Lonia Goldman (Fishman) was born in Vengrov in 1922. She, her three sisters and her brother were the children of an orthodox family that owned a cotton factory in Vengrov. In November, 1940, the family was deported from Vengrov to the Warsaw ghetto. They lived in the ghetto for two years, during which time Lonia married a tailor named Sevek. In 1942, she and her husband managed to escape to Vengrov. They were hidden by Jan and Maria Wikiel, Righteous Among the Nations, in a village near Vengrov. Click here and for more about Lonia Goldman’s story. See also Gilbert, Martin, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (MacMillan, 2003), p. 105.
Gittel Przepiorka (Gloria A. Glantz) was born in Vengrov in 1939. She lived with her parents Esther Finevasky and Mendel (son of Rachel and Pinchas) Przepiorka and her brothers Shmulik and Yitzchak in an apartment above their father’s small leather factory. In 1942, her mother took her to a farmhouse in a village outside of Vengrov and left her in the care of Mrs. Kowalchik, one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Although only three years old, Gittel was trained to pretend to be a Christian and to call the farmer's wife matka (mother). She survived the Holocaust as Mrs. Kowalchik’s child, after which she was reunited with relatives who had emigrated to America before the war. For more about Gittel Przepiorka's story, click here and here.
Samuel Rajzman (Reisman) was born in Vengrov in 1902. Before the war, he and his wife and daughter were living in Warsaw. In 1942, they were deported to Treblinka, where his wife, daughter, two brothers, and a sister perished. In all, some 70 members of his family died in the Holocaust. Rajzman led a group of fighters during the Treblinka revolt and spent the next year hiding in the forest. After the war, he was an important witness at war-crimes trials. For more about Samuel Rajzman’s story, click here and here.
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