ROZEN, Yosef – Widower of Zofia Katarzyna Rozen (1917 – 1980)
Although Zofia Katarzyna Rozen (née Tomczak) was born to a conservative Polish family and received a Catholic convent education, she threw in her lot with that of the Jewish people from an early age. In 1940, she married Zenon Merenholc, a Jew, and the two reached the town of Ostrog, in the Volhynia district, as refugees. In 1941, with the German occupation of the city, Katarzyna’s husband was killed in one of the early Aktionen and she was left alone with her newborn baby daughter on the Aryan side of the city.
Rozen exploited the fact that she was Aryan to help Jews who escaped from the ghetto, and did all she could to assist the many Jewish acquaintances who flocked to her door. Using her own birth certificate, Rozen obtained an “Aryan” identity card for young Róża Siedlecka, which enabled her to volunteer for work in Germany where she survived. In September 1942, the engineer Michał Szechatow, fled from the ghetto and hid in her house for over a year. Józef Galicki, who also escaped from the ghetto in 1942, reached Rozen’s home on the verge of despair, after having spent many abortive months looking for a refuge. Rozen gave him a warm welcome and provided him with food and clothes, until he recovered sufficiently to join the partisans in the local forests. Rozen also gave material and moral support to Irena Szeneskrin and Guta Szejberg, who were hiding on the Aryan side of the city. After Ukrainian neighbors began harassing her for helping Jews, Katarzyna left with her little daughter for the forests, on the eve of the liberation, and joined a group of Jewish partisans from the town of Ostrog, with whom she stayed until the area was liberated. After the war, Katarzyna married a Jew, Josef Rozen, and in 1958, the two immigrated to Israel.
On September 26, 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Zofia Katarzyna Rozen as Righteous Among the Nations.
