Last year, Yad Vashem - the World Holocaust Memorial Centre in Jerusalem - recognized Jan and Stefania Buchała, who rescued Polanski, then in his early teens, as Righteous Among the Nations.
The decision came in the wake of a request from Polanski, who wrote in a letter to Yad Vashem: “Stefania, without any recompense, solely out of love for others, risked her life, and that of her husband and children, by hiding me in their home for almost two years. During that time, despite the poverty and the scarcity of food for her family, she hid and fed me. After the war, as a film director, I travelled to Poland twice to the village of Wysoka. Unfortunately, I was already unable to find any sign of life from them.”
Haaretz writes that Polanski some time later discovered that Stefania Buchała had died of tuberculosis in 1953, at the age of 49. Her husband Jan died about a month later, and both were buried in the same grave. Since no one paid for maintaining the site of their grave, their bones were exhumed and another local resident was buried in their place 20 years later.
The only descendant Polanski was able to track down was the couple’s grandson Stanisław Buchała, who will accept the Yad Vashem medal in their name.
Born in 1933, Polanski has eight Academy Awards to his credit, including one for best director for The Pianist, based on the war-time plight of Władysław Szpilman, the famous Polish pianist and composer of Jewish origin.
(mk/pk)