Page 62 - Witness

Candles of Kindness
Joe Gottdenker was born in a Polish convent in Sandomierz, then hidden for three years by Petronela and Wladyslaw Ziolo, who risked their lives every day to hide the toddler. In 1992, Joe returned to his ancestral town of Mielec, where his parents and grandparents once lived. Joe encountered an old man who remembered the Jewish residents of the town, including Joe’s parents and grandparents. When Joe identified himself as Benny and Bina Gottdenkers’ son, the old man “almost fell over, and turned white as a ghost,” thinking that no one from the Jewish community had survived. He then showed Joe where his mother’s parents once lived. The two elderly Polish sisters who now lived in Joe’s grandparents’ tiny home, a turn-of-the-century cottage with dirt floors and few amenities, remembered Joe’s family and warmly welcomed him. Just before he left, a dramatic gesture took place.
“As I was ready to leave, one of them got up and she walked out of the room, and she came back, and she was holding these candlestick holders, which are sterling silver. She gave them to me and she said, ‘This is all we could save from the Germans and we knew that one day somebody would come back for these.’
“It was the first direct, concrete link between me and my family’s life in Poland before the war. What struck me very, very emotionally was that they had saved them...didn’t pass them on to anybody, didn’t sell them. They kept them. They knew one day somebody would come back for these.
“When my children start lighting these candles, and my grandchildren start lighting these candles, that is going to be their connection to Poland, their connection to the Jewish life in Poland. They’re going to know that these were lit in Mielec by my grandmother, by their great-grandmother.
“I will also instill this in them: These candles are significant to the goodness that was in these two sisters.... And they should then also remember the courage and humanity of the Ziolos, that they exhibited in hiding me at the risk of their lives and the lives of their family.
“When I see the light of these candles, I see there is goodness out there at the worst of times.”
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