Zofia Olszakowska-Glazer

Zofia Glazer, née Olszakowska (12 April 1915 – 20 November 2007), was a Polish educator and resistance member during World War II, involved in rescue of Jews during the Holocaust.

Zofia is known for rescuing Cypora Zonszajn née Jabłoń (1915–1942). The two were close friends from the prewar Gymnasium of Queen Jadwiga in the city of Siedlce, in the Second Polish Republic. Cypora (Cypa) was a Polish Jew born into an affluent family.

During the September 1939 Nazi–Soviet invasion of Poland both women were in Siedlce, separated by circumstances beyond their control. At the end of November, the new German administration ordered the creation of a Judenrat. On Christmas Eve the Nazis set fire to the synagogue and burned it to the ground, with Jewish refugees inside.

Background After her high school graduation Zofia enrolled at the Warsaw School of Economics, where she studied the cooperative movement. She was one of the protesting students against the Numerus clausus form of segregation introduced by the Sanacja government. She continued her studies in Sweden until the invasion of Poland, and came back to Siedlce as soon as the war began. She made contacts with the Polish underground resistance movement and became associated with the Bataliony Chłopskie partisans.

Also from Siedlce, On that day, Cypora gave birth to her baby girl Rachela (Rachel). In order to provide for the family, her husband Jakub joined the Jewish Ghetto Police organized by the Judenrat Council on the orders of the Nazi administration in the ghetto. His decision helped them survive the ghetto liquidation action, but only for several months.

Treblinka deportations The Siedlce Ghetto liquidation action began on Friday, 22 August 1942. Around 10,000 Polish Jews from three transit ghettos were rounded up at the town square. The next morning the men, women and children were marched to the Umschlagplatz and sent to Treblinka aboard awaiting Holocaust trains. An additional 5,000 to 6,000 Jews were forced into the cemetery and sent away to their deaths the following day by train. Cypora with her one-year-old Rachela (pictured) found refuge in the so-called 'small ghetto' (a.k.a. 'the little ghetto', or Drojek) thanks to Jakub, who organized their transfer, but the ultimate fate of the remaining Jewish prisoners could easily be guessed. Cypora joined a group of Jewish refugees at a house inside the little ghetto.

In the fall of 1945 Zofia Glazer took Rachela to Warsaw in tears and entrusted her to a Jewish organization in charge of transferring Jewish children to Mandate Palestine. Rachela was taken to France and put on a ship to Palestine with a group of Jewish orphans but the ship was turned back by the British. The children were returned to an orphanage in France. Irena Zawadzka went to visit Rachela (now Rachel) there in 1947 and found her disoriented and very sad, which made Zofia regret this for the rest of her life. Little Rachel reached Palestine after two years in late 1947, and lived with her uncle for just one year. She was placed in a boarding school and since 1953 lived in Kibbutz Ma'abarot. Rachel Zonszajn married in 1960. She stayed in close contact with Zofia Glazer and Irena Zawadzka in Poland.

Zofia Glazer first settled in Lublin in late 1945 and obtained a position with the state-run "Społem" organization (pl). From there, she was transferred to Łódź and taught cooperative movement at the Higher School of Economics for two years. She got married and relocated to Warsaw. Zofia and Irena Zawadzka were invited by Szymon Jablon to come to Israel for a visit in 1966 when Rachel was 25; however, Rachel did not remember much from her own childhood. Rachel visited Poland for the first time in the 1980s. On 25 May 1988 Zofia Glazer along with Irena Zawadzka and her mother Mrs. Sabina Zawadzka were awarded titles of the Righteous. Rachel died of brain cancer in 2002, leaving two sons behind. Zofia died on 20 November 2007 in Łódź, interviewed for the last time by Zuzanna Schnepf from the Shalom Foundation just before her death. She was outlived by her daughter. Irena Zawadzka died on 12 March 2012.