Hafftka and Jonisch families photographs

Aleksander Zygmunt Hafftka (1892-1964) was born in Częstochowa, Poland. He had at least two brothers, Mordechai and Sam; and two sisters, Ella and Jadwiga. He was a veteran of World War I, serving in one of Józef Piłsudski’s Legions, and was also a journalist and historian. While in Częstochowa, Aleksander became Ola Jonisch's English tutor. After school, she returned to Żarki to help with her father’s business, but kept in touch with him. They eventually married and settled in Warsaw, Poland. Their daughter, Sylvia (later Sylvia Smoller) was born in 1932. After Piłsudski’s coup in 1926, Aleksander became the highest-ranking Jewish civil servant in the government, eventually serving as a counselor on Jewish Affairs to the Polish Interior Ministry. When he learned of a proposed ban on Kosher slaughter, he assisted Agudat Yisrael in fighting the ban on the grounds that it was anti-Semitic, but was forced out of his position. After losing his government job, Aleksander joined a group dedicated to assisting German Jewish refugees resettle in Poland. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the family sought ways to escape Warsaw. Aleksander was able to commandeer a car from a police station, and the family went to Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). They remained in Wilno for about a year. They learned about the Japanese consul to Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara, who, in opposition to the Japanese government, was issuing transit visas to Jews trying to escape Europe. The Hafftkas were able to secure transit visas, and then American visas from the American consulate in Moscow. They traveled along the Trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok, Russia where they took a boat to Japan. They remained in Japan for around 4 months, then sailing to Seattle, Washington in March 1941 from Kobe. The family settled in New York. Sylvia would go on to become a professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she focuses on women’s health issues.

Rachela Ola Jonisch (b. 1902) was born in 1902 in Żarki, Poland to Mordecai and Esther Jonisch (née Fiefkopf, b. 1879). Mordecai owned a leather business in Żarki. Ola had four brothers, Moniek (Moses), David (b. 1908), Sam, and Schlomo; and two sisters, Hilda and Sophie. Ola’s parents, Mordechai and Esther Jonisch both perished during the war. They were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Mordechai died on the train and Esther was killed at the camp. Her sister Hilda was deported to the Majdanek concentration camp and survived, and her sister Sophie was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and also survived. The rest of her siblings survived the war in hiding, but many members of her extended family perished. Both of Aleksander’s sisters survived the Holocaust, as did his brother Sam.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Sylvia Smoller.

Donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Sylvia Smoller in 2016,