a lasting friendship

Through her memoir, Hiding in the Open, Sabina recounts her fantastic story of survival. She describes living through the war years as “unbelievable luck.”

Sabina and her sister Helka obtained forged documents from a teacher who was also the mother of her friend. The sisters tried to escape to Switzerland, but ran out of money. Disguised as Catholics, they spent the war years in the open working as Polish Catholics among the Germans.

It is important to Sabina that people know about the relationship she has maintained with the family that saved her. “This relationship began in our childhood, lasted through the horrors of war and the hardships of post-war… and wore through the lives of three generations.” It is the story of two Jewish sisters and two Catholic sisters who were able to look beyond their religious differences.

Sabina and her sister were able to survive by hiding in the open. Today Sabina’s message to young Jews is,“Be Jews — don’t hide!”