Henry Rosen collection

Henry Rosen (nicknamed Hesio, 1922-2004) was born as Ozjasz Henryk Rozen on May 5, 1922 in Czortkow, Poland (Chortkiv, Ukraine) to Albin Rozen and Klara Bergman Rozen. He had two brothers: Samuel (nicknamed Milo, b. 1925) and Yechiel (nicknamed Chilek, b. 1931). Prior to World War II the family lived in Buczacz, Poland (Buchach, Ukraine).

In September 1939 Buczacz was occupied by the Soviet Union. After the German invasion of Russia in July 1941 Buczacz was occupied by the Nazis and a ghetto was soon established. Henry was sent as a forced-laborer first to Borki Wielki and then the Tunnel labor camp where he worked construction and fixed telephone lines. After around a year he escaped the work camps and returned to his family in the Buczacz ghetto where he lived in hiding.

At the end of 1943 his brother Samuel arranged with Manko Swierszczak, a childhood friend and a Polish cemetery custodian, for the Rosens to hide in a bunker in the cemetary. Manko had previously hid approximately forty Jews in the cemetery chapel attic during an Aktion, and supplied them with food and water. The Rosen brothers and their mother hid in the graveyard and later in a bunker under the funeral parlor. During the German retreat from the advancing Red Army the ceiling of bunker collapsed. The family fled but their mother Klara was shot and killed. The brothers fled to the nearby village Podlesie where they hid on the farm of Michał and Genowefa Dukiewicz. The Rosens knew the Dukiewicz family, who had previously helped them. After the area was liberated by the Red Army in April 1944, Henry and Samuel Samuel volunteered to serve in the Polish Army and participated in battles for liberation of Poland.

After the war, Samuel and Yechiel immigrated to Israel, and Henry immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago, Illinois.

In 1983, as a result of a petition organized by Henry and his brothers, Yad Vashem recognized Manko and Marina Swierszczak and Michal Dukiewicz and his wife as Righteous Among the Nations for saving the lives of Henry, Samuel and Yechiel Rosen.