Thank you, Nacia Anastazja Brodziak

Today is Holocaust Day. A day to remember the horrors of the past. But it should also be an occasion to recall the moments of hope and the people – and peoples –  that personified that life-saving hope.

Like Nacia Anastazja Brodziak who took in my fleeing grandparents, hid them from the Nazis in her tiny Warsaw flat and for five years pretended they were her Catholic cousins from the countryside. I went to see her more than a decade ago. I wanted to thank her. It is actually hard to thank someone without whom neither I nor my father would have been born. Today is a way to do so again – in one’s prayers, or thoughts.

It is also a day to thank peoples. The selflessness that individuals showed during World War II was also shown by a few nations. For example Denmark, where fishermen ferried Jews to safety in neutral Sweden, or Albania where Jews sought refuge and were protected by Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox citizens alike.