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Mr.
Eli Zborowski speaks during the groundbreaking
ceremonies for the new Holocaust Museum in May 2000. |
In
the summer of 1943, current Chairman of the American Society
for Yad Vashem, Eli Zborowski, then a young man of 17, left
the ranks of other resistance fighters in the Jewish
Fighters’ Organization and joined his mother and two younger
siblings, in-hiding—a move which would ultimately result in
his survival of the Holocaust.
Born
in Zarki, Poland, the first child to a Hassidic family,
Zborowski’s childhood was spent in relative happiness. Even
so, the shadow of antisemitism permeated his life from early
on.
At
the onset of WWII, the Germans began bombing Zarki almost
immediately, and not long after, Zborowski and his family were
placed in a ghetto. During his time there, Zborowski obtained
false papers listing him as a gentile, which he used in order
to leave the ghetto and serve as a liaison between the ghetto
and the non-Jewish underground. In early 1943, a few months
after the liquidation of the ghetto, the Zborowski family took
refuge in the home of family acquaintances, Maria and Jozef
Placzek. Zborowski’s father, Moshe, a successful leather
trader, was separated from the family and was taken to a
German work camp from which he managed to escape in August
1943, only to be killed by Poles en route to join his family
in hiding.
“My
father was killed by Poles, but I was saved by Poles,” says
Zborowski. “It really shows that you can never generalize
about people.”
Zborowski
and his family were hidden in the Placzek family attic, in a
hiding space crafted specially for them by Josef Placzek, a
carpenter by vocation. The Placzeks went out of their way to
provide Zborowski and his family with any provisions available
to them, and their daughter, Jadwiga, was of immeasurable
help, as well. In March 1978, Yad Vashem recognized both Maria
and Jozef Placzek as Righteous Among the Nations, and in May
1985, Jadwiga received the same designation.
In
August 1944, fearing their hiding place had been discovered,
Zborowski and his family fled from the Placzek’s home to the
home of acquaintances of Zborowski’s father, the Kolacz
family, in the nearby village of Bobolice. There, they joined
six of their other family members already in-hiding in a
small, cramped chicken coop where they remained until the end
of the war. Andrzej
Kolacz; his daughter, Stanislawa; his son, Jozef; and
Jozef’s wife, Apolonia, aided the Zborowski family
throughout their stay and refused to accept money that was
offered to them after the war as recompense for their brave
deeds. Jozef and Apolonia Kolacz received the title of
Righteous Among the Nations in 1978, and Andrzej Kolacz and
Stanislawa Pikula (formerly Kolacz) were recognized by Yad
Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 1998.
Zborowski
survived the Holocaust along with his mother, sister, younger
brother, and uncle’s family. Following liberation, Zborowski
aided in the Aliyah Bet Operation (the illegal
smuggling of Jews into British-Mandate Palestine) until the
founding of the State in 1948. In early 1952, he emigrated
from Europe to the United States together with his wife, Diana
née Wilf, also a Holocaust survivor. The couple settled
in Forest Hills, New York where Zborowski began his
now-thriving business career with ventures in South America.
Throughout the years, he has headed several corporations and
currently serves as the President of All America
Telecommunications Inc.
Even
while building a new life for himself in America, Zborowski
never forgot his Jewish roots or his self-stated obligation as
a Holocaust survivor. “There were so many brushes with
death,” Zborowski recalls, “that I came out feeling that I
must have a mission in life, and that mission is the mission
of remembrance and telling the story.”
In
an effort to educate about the Holocaust and perpetuate the
memory of his loved ones who perished, he began his
affiliation with Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’and
Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in 1963. That same year, he
initiated the first Yom Hashoah commemoration in the US.
By 1969, he was serving as Director of the Yad Vashem
Executive Committee and in 1981 he founded the American
Society for Yad Vashem. “We began our efforts as the
American Society, united in the desire that the horrors of the
Holocaust should never be forgotten,” Zborowski explains.
“Our support has helped Yad Vashem become one of the most
significant landmarks in the moral history of humankind.”
Along
with his involvement with Yad Vashem, Zborowski has played and
continues to play an integral role in numerous other
organizations dedicated to the preservation of Jewish memory
and Zionist causes. He was appointed to the United States
Holocaust Memorial Council by former US President Jimmy Carter
and was later reappointed by former US President Ronald
Reagan. He was also appointed to
the New York Permanent Commission on the Holocaust by former
New York Mayor Edward Koch.
Eli
Zborowski is a man of poignant life chronicles, and endless
life visions. Of all of his many undertakings and achievements
he is still most proud of his two children, Lillian and
Morris, and his seven grandchildren who if given the
opportunity to “show my father just one thing that I’ve
accomplished in my life, I would show him my family: children
and grandchildren dedicated to Jewish tradition.”
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