- Biography
- Zbigniew Kelhoffer (the donor's father) was born on June 13, 1913 in Boryslaw, Poland. He was the older son of Helena and Norbert Kelhoffer, a lawyer. His younger brother Mieczyslaw was born in 1920. Zbyszek studied at the Lvov Polytechnic until June 1939. While still in high school he met Sydonia (Sydzia) Pomeranz (the donor's mother) who was born on July 31, 1912. Her family was well off and Sydzia was sent to Prague to study pharmacy. She graduated in 1937 and moved to Vienna to continue her piano studies. After the Anschluss in March 1938, Sydzia returned to Boryslaw. She married Zbigniew in June 1940. Following the German invasion of Eastern Poland and the Soviet Union in June 1941, Zbyszek was mobilized into the Soviet Army. The Germans captured him as a prisoner of war, but he managed to escape and return home. On July 1, 1941 the Germans entered Boryslaw, and the following day the Ukrainians staged a pogrom during which they killed over 200 Jews. From this time on the Germans organized several "Aktionen" in Boryslaw during which Jews were murdered or sent to the Belzec death camp. At the end of 1942 they established the Beskiden labor camp in Boryslaw where Jews worked as slave laborers in the oil industry. The workers wore special badges on their lapels, with an embroidered letter "R" (Rüstung - Armament), which protected them from deportation. On February 16, 1943 the Germans gathered 600 Jews at the local slaughterhouse and executed them. Zbyszek's parents were among those killed. After this event Zbyszek prepared a hiding place in the Pomeranz's house. Sydzia's two sisters, Julia and Roza, their mother Helena and six other Jews hid there for close to two years helped by two members of the AK (Armia Krajowa - Polish underground) who brought them food every day. Sydzia joined her family in hiding in June 1943, and in December 1943 Zbyszek joined them as well. When the Red Army liberated Boryslaw on August 8, 1944 some 200 Jews came out of hideouts and nearby forests. After the end of the war, Zbyszek and Sydzia Kelhoffer left their hometown, which became part of USSR, and moved to Gliwice, Poland, where their daughter Barbara was born on March 17, 1947. Ten years later they moved to Czestochowa before immigrating to Israel in 1957. Sydzia Pomeranz Kelhoffer died in 1986 and her husband Zbyszek died two years later.
