Irena Senderska-Rzonca - Righteous Among the Nations
Under German occupation, Jewish doctor Elias Bander with the help of my father organized parcels with medicines. In secret from my mother, father engaged my brother and me to carry them into the ghetto - Irena Senderska-Rzonca, acting Secretary of the Board of the Polish Association of Righteous Among the Nations, told PAP.
Irena Senderska-Rzonca (nee Krzysztalowska) was born in 1931 in Boryslaw in a large family (Boryslaw currently lies in Ukraine). Irena Senderska-Rzonca's father, Jozef Krzysztalowski, was a friend of doctor Elias Bander, who with his family was placed in the ghetto by the Germans. According to an agreement with the Jewish doctor, Jozef Krzysztalowski organized parcels with medicines, which were carried into the ghetto by Irena Senderska-Rzonca.
Irena remembered, that in 1942 the Germans erected the ghettos and forced Jews to relocate there. "However, for the better educated among them, like engineers and doctors, Germans issued passes. These Jews left the ghetto in the morning and returned after work. One of them was doctor Elias Bander" - she said.
"My father had a sick stomach and had it treated even before the war. That's how he got to know doctor Bander. Elias Bander was one of the Jews who were let out of the ghetto daily to a centre for Poles and Ukrainians. During those times Elias Bander, with the help of my father, organized parcels with medicines - since Jews couldn’t carry anything in and out of the ghetto. In secret from my mother, father engaged my brother and me to carry them into the ghetto" - recalls Sender-Rzonca.
Then an eleven-years old girl, she entered the ghetto through a camouflaged, secluded passage. "It was so small, that only a slim and petite person could slip through it, so they chose me. After I entered through this hole in the fence, I had to pass by some sheds, or toilets, and there waited an older man. He took the parcels from me and gave me money. Clutching them tightly in my hand, I squeezed back through the hole in the fence and got to a pathway where my brother was waiting for me and watching if someone wasn’t coming" - describes Irena Sender-Rzonca.
"Once, when I was practically on the ghetto side, I heard shouting. I knew, that the Germans had entered the ghetto. Stiff with fear, I somehow managed to find the man and give him my parcel, but because of the haste involved, he neither gave me any money nor did I take any from him, I just ran for it. When I got outside, my brother reprimanded me asking: how is the doctor going to buy medicine for the next parcel now? And I said: there won't be another parcel, because I’m not going into the ghetto again."
Later on, doctor Elias Bander asked Jan Krzysztalowski to hide his wife Regina and young son Myron. "Father came one day and said that we must find a way to provide shelter for the doctor's wife and son" - remembers Irena Senderska-Rzonca. "We lived in an outbuilding, because the Russians in the very beginning - right after they came - removed us from our apartment and gave us this outbuilding. We had a small, concealed attic there, because the building had a flat roof and it looked as if the roof was lying on the ceiling. My father kept pigeons there and he prepared it as the quarters for the doctor's wife and son. The boy was able to sit up, but the adults had to lie down on their backs or stomachs. And this is how we began life as an enlarged family" - she said.
In these new circumstances we had to regularly "bring food, carry water and dispose of excrement". "This meant I had to leave the house and take a few steps - it wasn't far - to a goat shed. There was a ladder in the shed, which I had to use and hide every time, so that no one who entered the shed knew, that we went to the attic. There was a larger space there with hay for the goats. At night, Regina with her son could go to this bigger room and straighten their legs" - she described.
After two weeks, Elias Bander joined his wife and son. He expected the situation to last no longer than a month and a half. However, doctor Bander’s family hid at the Krzysztalowscy’s for over 6 months.
"My mother didn't want to agree to it, because, as she said, it was another mouth to feed. Our nerves were taut all the time, my mother constantly blamed my father for the situation we had found ourselves in. Sometimes my mother would tell me to take my younger sisters to my aunt’s overnight, because if they (the Germans) came in the night, at least we’d survive. That’s what these eight and a half months of fear were like" - she said.
After the Soviet Army reached Borsylaw in August 1944, Bandera family could leave their hiding place at the Krzysztalowscy's.
"My mother took Myron down right away, she washed him and changed his clothes. Regina came down as well, but imagine, that Elias didn’t want to go. Father went to him and tried to convince him those soldiers were 'ours'" she remembers.
Still, Elias Bander argued, that before he will manage to explain to the soldiers he is a Jew in hiding, someone will shoot him. Despite his family trying to change his mind, he decided to stay in hiding.
"This is how Elias stayed in the attic the longest. His wife and son were downstairs, while he didn't want to come down. A type of psychosis, it wasn't normal" - Irena Sender-Rzonca said. "Finally he came down in the worst of states. All bruised up. My mother saved one shirt and some clothing beforehand, which she held onto and didn't exchange for food. Father took those clothes and said to Elias: me, a chauffeur, and you, a doctor - take this, wash yourself, change and do something with your life. This is exactly how our farewell looked" - she described.
Not long afterwards, Irena's mother, Helena Krzysztalowska, fell ill with typhus fever. Doctor Bander, who was organizing the local hospital, offered help.
"Right away, Elias had a chance to repay us. There was no infectious disease ward in Boryslaw. He had to take a risk. Somehow, he arranged a room in a cellar, which he refurbished as a hospital. He didn't let mother go to the one in Drohobycz, since he knew people died there. He managed to save mother and everything ended well" - Irena Sender-Rzonca said.
After the war, Bander family found some relatives in Lodz and decided to leave Boryslaw. Next, they moved to Germany and in 1949 emigrated to the U.S. Myron Bander graduated in Physics from Columbia University in New York.
Irena Sender-Rzonca remembers the parting with Bander family very well. "Elias said to my father: I'm indebted to you until the end of my life. My father replied: you don’t owe me anything. You saved my wife, the mother of my children, and I saved your family. This is how they said their farewells" - she added.
