Stanislaw Swida

Born: Unknown, Warsaw, Poland

Stanislaw and Regina Swida were responsible for the life of one small Jewish boy. They did everything they could to make sure that he would survive the Holocaust.

Avraham Horowitz was born in the Warsaw ghetto, a place where Jews were forced to live under appalling conditions. In April 1943, the Nazis began to remove everyone from the ghetto and send them to concentration camps. Avraham's family split up in order to survive. His mother, Tatiana, got forged papers and went to live with a Polish family. His father, Benjamin, went into hiding. Avraham, who was a baby, ended up at the Swidas home.

Stanislaw and Regina knew it would be difficult to hide Avraham's Jewish identity because he was circumcised. But Stanislaw ingeniously went to the Gestapo, the secret police of Nazi Germany and succeeded in getting a certificate stating the Achmet Kraczkiewicz, Avraham's new name, was a member of the Muslim community. Muslim boys are also circumcised.

Stanislaw and Regina raised Avraham as if he was their own. Tatiana visited, but Avraham didn't remember that she was his mother. In 1944, when the Poles rebelled in an attempt to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany, Stanislaw and his son disappeared. Regina escaped through the ruins of Warsaw with Avraham. Tatiana took him back shortly before liberation. Avraham did not find out that she was his mother until after the war ended. They stayed in touch with Regina until they moved to Israel in 1950. Regina passed away in 1979.