World War II came with much pain to various families around the world, but most of all, the Jewish people suffered.
Michael Hokberg was 4 years old at the time. He lived with his family in a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. His mother felt the danger approaching and decided to take a desperate step to save her son. She threw her son over the wall, in the non-Jewish part of the city, hoping that he would be helped there.
The boy was taken by a Catholic couple – Rosa and Jozef Jakubowski. Everything happened at the right time, because soon the revolt started in the ghetto, which was drastically suppressed by the Nazis.
For two years, the Jakubowski family hid the boy safely. Warnings were heard everywhere: that all those who hid Jews in their homes would be severely punished. But this good family was not ready to discover its secret. Even their own daughter, Kristina, received Michael as a brother.
After the end of the war, Michael survived, but his family died in one of the concentration camps. The adoptive family took the little one to a Jewish orphanage in the hope that he would be found there by one of his relatives. In 1950, at the age of 11, Michael arrived in Israel, where he eventually settled and started a family.
In all these years he never forgot the family that helped him survive. 70 years later Michael finds out that Kristina’s sister lives in New York. He crossed half the globe to see her. And it really was a very emotional meeting. Here it is:
It is wonderful that there were such merciful people as the Jakubowski family in those difficult times of war. Their risk will certainly be rewarded.