Zahava Burack

Zahava Burack at a 1986 ceremony in honor of the Macugowski family. Zahava Burack (née Radza, December 14, 1932 – September 28, 2001) was a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Poland who went on to become a well-known philanthropist, community leader and political activist in the United States. During her childhood, she survived the Holocaust by hiding with her family in a crawlspace beneath the home of a Polish Catholic family for two and a half years. After the liberation of occupied Poland in 1945, she was smuggled to Israel, where she lived for twelve years, two of which she spent serving with the Haganah paramilitary organization. In 1958, Burack moved to the United States, where she worked with both American and Israeli politicians for Jewish causes.

Surviving the Holocaust Zahava Burack was born in 1932 in the shtetl of Nowy Korczyn, Poland, to Louis and Gitla Radza. Burack had three sisters, Rita, Miriam and Sarah. In the confusion, her older sister Rita became separated from the family and boarded the train; she was eventually taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Jozef was an old friend of Louis Radza's, and had previously offered assistance if the family ever required it.

In 1945, the German High Command took over the Macugowskis house as a local headquarters and forced the Macugowskis out. According to Burack's recollection, the Radzas took out their prayer book, said Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, and "all thanked God that we were going to die."

Jozef took the family to a town some miles away where no one knew them, and made them promise that they would never reveal who had protected them. Through her adult life, Burack maintained her search for the Polish couple that had saved her and her family. the Westchester-Putnam Boy Scouts of America Council, and the David Yellin College of Education, among numerous others.

She met Jimmy Carter in 1975, before he was officially nominated as the Democratic Party candidate for the 1976 election, and later organized his election campaign in Westchester. Burack was a marcher at Carter's inauguration parade after he won the 1976 presidential election.

In 1984, Senator Joseph R. Pisani introduced a resolution to the New York State Senate to honor Burack for her long record of service to the Westchester community.

In 1986, Burack finally made contact with Stephania and Jozef Macugowski. Zahava died from cancer on September 28, 2001.