LUIS OPATOWSKI BIO

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ABRAHAM GOLDBERG BIO

Abraham was the youngest of four siblings, born into a politically and socially active family in Lodz, Poland. The Nazis murdered his family, and only Abraham and his older sister survived.

On 29 August 1944, Abraham arrived with his mother at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He remembers the last words his mother told him before they separated—she said, "Do everything humanly possible to survive. When you do, wherever you will find yourself, tell the world what happened to your family and other Jews." She believed Abraham would survive and he has since devoted his life to this work.

When Abraham stood in front of the Angel of Death, Dr. Mengele, 90% of the men were sent to their deaths. His finger didn’t point at Abraham, which is why he considers his survival 99% luck, because all Jews of Occupied Europe had a death sentence.

HANNAH GOFRIT BIO

Hannah Gofrit was born in 1935 in the town of Biała Rawska, Poland, to Hershel and Zisel Hershkowitz. With the Nazi conquest, Hannah was forbidden from attending school, and her parents tutored her at home. Hannah’s family was allowed to live outside the ghetto established in the town, as her mother worked as a seamstress for the German forces. Hannah’s parents arranged to hide her with a Polish family, but Hannah refused, and joined them hiding in an underground potato shed.

At the end of 1942 the town’s Jews were deported to Treblinka. The family's neighbor, Mrs. Moshalkova, managed to obtain forged documents just for Hannah and her mother. Her father's fate remains unknown.

For two years, the women hid in the Warsaw apartment of the Skowroneks (later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations), helping their rescuers as much as possible. They were forbidden to look out the window or wear shoes, for fear of teir discovery. Hannah and her mother were saved during a Gestapo raid when one of the daughters hid them in the attic. On Christmas, when the Skowroneks had guests over, Hannah and her mother hid in a closet. Inside the dark closet, Hannah imagined herself flying into free, open spaces, like a butterfly.

After their documents were burned in the bombing of Warsaw, the women masqueraded as devout Polish Catholics. There were deported to the labor camp in Senftenberg near Leipzig, where they were employed in an AEG plant. As the Red Army approached, Hannah and her mother fled. They returned to their hometown, where they discovered they were the only survivors from their entire family. They left the following day for Lodz, where Zisel married Yosef Kupershmid, a Holocaust survivor whose wife and daughter had been murdered. A year later, Hannah’s brother Avraham was born. 

In January 1949 Hannah emigrated to Israel, and settled in Tel Aviv. After attending nursing school, she worked as a public health nurse. For her devoted work, Hannah was awarded the Namir Labor Prize. She continued working as the chief nurse in Tel Aviv's Public Health Division until her retirement.

With the help of Naomi Morgenstern, Hannah wrote her memoirs, I Wanted to Fly Like a Butterfly. Translated into six languages, the book is read extensively in classrooms in Israel and abroad. Hannah corresponds and meets with its young readers from around the world.

Hannah is married to Yitzhak, is the mother of Ofer and has three grandchildren.

ZOFIA RADZIKOWSKA BIO

Zofia Radzikowska was born November 1935 in Krakow and lived in Krakow’s city center before the Nazi invasion.

Zofia's father was forced to relocate to the Jewish Ghetto and was eventually taken to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Zofia’s mother secured fake identification papers for the two of them and was able to keep their Jewish identities secret as she worked to support them during WWII. Throughout the war they lived in various towns near Krakow.

After the war, Zofia attended the Hebrew Tarbut school. She graduated in law with a Ph.D. degree. For over 30 years, she worked at the Department of Criminal Law at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University. Additionally she was a councilor of the City of Krakow. After the fall of Communism, at the beginning of the 90s, Zofia once again became involved in Jewish life. Zofia became a member of the Children of the Holocaust Association, the Israel-Poland Friendship Association, and the Jewish Social-Cultural Association in Poland. After opening JCC Krakow in 2008, she became its most active member. At the JCC, she is the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine “Jesteśmy”, author of the „What’s the Parsha, Pani Zosia?” series on YouTube, and choir member. She received the Fr. Stanisław Musiał award for her involvement in the Christian-Jewish dialogue.

Zofia still lives in Krakow, with her son and granddaughters. She has one brother, with whom she meets often at JCC Krakow.