Florentyna Kosmider photographs

Florentyna Kośmider was born Ida Zelikowska on March 5, 1919 in Słonim, Poland. Her father, Jakub Zelikowski was a pharmacist and her mother, Rachela Kurchin Zelikowska was a housewife. Ida had one brother, Lowa Zelikowski, who was born in 1921. In 1937 Ida Zelikowska left Słonim for Warsaw to attend The Warsaw School of Commerce (Wyższa Szkoła Handlowa). During her studies she met and fell in love with a fellow student, Yechiel Henek Kołobielski. In August 1939 the couple left Warsaw for Słonim. They married in 1940 when Słonim was under the Soviet rule. In June 1941 Germany attacked USSR and in December 1941 they established a ghetto in Słonim. Ida’s father worked as a pharmacist in a hospital outside the ghetto. In June and July 1942 some 10,000 Jews were killed in Petrolewicze, near Słonim, Ida’s parents and brother among them. Ida and Henek Kołobielski left Słonim in May 1942 to join Henek’s parents in the Warsaw ghetto. They were smuggled in and found refuge in his parents apartment on Nowolipie Street. Both found jobs in the Schultz Firma, which gave them some protection from deportations to Treblinka. In January 1943 Ida and Henek escaped from the ghetto. Bronia Pijewska hid them in her apartment on 24 Bednarska Street in Warsaw. Bronia bought false ID papers for Ida under the name of Florentyna Solicka and for Henek under name of Antonii Królak. Krystyna and Władysław Stańczykowski were instrumental in hiding Ida and Henek as well. Bronia Pijewska and Krystyna and Władysław Stańczykowski were recognized by Yad Vashem as Rightious Among the Nations. In August 1944, during the Warsaw uprising, Germans arrested Ida and sent her for forced labor in Watenstadt, Germany. The US Army liberated her there on May 5, 1945. She returned to Poland to search for her husband, Henek. In 1946 Ida found out that Henek survived, settled in Munich, Germany and worked for the Jewish Committee there. He married another woman, assuming that his wife perished. Ida remained in Poland, married Mr. Kośmider, a Pole and had two children. In 1968 she and her children emigrated from Poland to Denmark.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Florentyna Kosminder

Donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1999 by Florentyna Kosmider.