Felicia Nowak (born as Felicja Raszkin) was born on December 23, 1924 in Warsaw, Poland. Her father, Jakub Raszkin (b. June 6, 1896-1941), worked for a textile company and her mother, Betty Szapiro Raszkin (b. April 23, 1902), was a beautician. The family was assimilated but observed Jewish holidays and kashrut. Felicia’s maternal family lived in Bialystok, Poland and every summer she spent her vacations there. In September 1939 Jakub left Warsaw for Bialystok and Betty and Felicia joined him later that year. Under the Soviet administration Felicia continued her high-school studies and both her parents tried to find different jobs to support the family.
On June 22, 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union and anti-Jewish repression started immediately. As of July 8, 1941 all Jews had to wear a yellow Star of David and were not allowed to walk on a sidewalk. Jakub was arrested on July 12, 1941 and executed with 5,000 other Jewish men. On August 1, 1941 Felicia and her mother were forced into the Bialystok ghetto. Felicia who was employed outside the ghetto was able to smuggle in some additional food. Mr. Józef Zalewski, who for many years supplied Felicia’s grandmother with food, continued to support them. Felicia was employed as a cleaning woman and later in the tobacco factory. A cousin, who was married to Maria, a German non-Jewish woman, warned his family in the ghetto that the Germans were planning a deportation aktion on November 1, 1942. Felicia and her mother, Betty, with other relatives managed to leave the ghetto and reach Mr. Zalewski’s village. After a few days Betty decided to return to the ghetto and rejoin her own mother. After a few months Mr. Zalewski and his daughter Genia contacted Felicia and offered to get her false papers. The plan involved Felicia’s volunteering for forced labor in Germany as a Polish woman. Felicia decided to stay with her mother, but she kept the false birth certificate and a photograph.
Life in the ghetto became more and more difficult; news about extermination of the Jews in Treblinka and Auschwitz reached the ghetto. The second deportation aktion started on February 5, 1943. 10,000 Jews were deported during the seven days of the aktion. The final liquidation of the Bialystok ghetto began on August 16, 1943. About 800 Jews were spared the deportation and Felicia and her mother were among them. Under her mother’s pressure Felicia escaped from the ghetto. Stanislaw, a strange Polish man helped her to reach her destination: a janitor in a house occupied by Felicia’s relatives before the war. The same man arranged a safe place for her for a few days, but he demanded a heavy price for bringing a letter from her mother from the ghetto and raped her. After a week Mr. Zalewski arrived and took her to his village in Ponikla. On August 31, 1943 Felicia found a safe haven in the barn of Mr. and Mrs. Zalewski.
Józef Zalewski built a hiding place above the stable. Felicja could lie down or sit but she could not stand up in her hiding place. She spent eleven months in her hiding place, only on occasional nights she was able to sleep in the main house. After liberation, Felicja returned to Bialystok only to find out that she was the only survivor of her immediate family. She met and married a fellow survivor, Jakub Silber, who survived on false papers issued for the name Nowak. After liberation he remained under the same name. Felicja went back to college, where she majored in communication and theater. She worked in the Polish Radio and Jakub, who is an engineer, served in the Polish army. They had three children: Mark Marian (b. 1948) and Beata Betty (b. 1948). Mark and Beata left Poland in 1969 and Felicja and Jakub Nowak joined their children in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1971. Stanislaw and Jadwiga Zalewski were named Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem.
