"He just took off and never had the chance to thank Janusz, never had the chance to tell him why he was leaving. And he was gone."
--Andrew Rawicki
Andrew Rawicki, son of Holocaust survivor, Jerry Rawicki, recalls the stories of his late father's survival and escape from Warsaw, Poland.
There was often a point, in telling his story, where Jerry Rawicki stopped.
It wasn’t the horrors of the Holocaust in Poland, the loss of his family at the Treblinka extermination camp or years not talking that caused the pause.
It hurt to talk about Janusz Rybakiewicz.
But it mattered.
Rawicki, of St. Petersburg, died of natural causes Feb. 22 at 94.
The story of the boy who saved his life was his to remember and his to share. And when he couldn’t carry on, Rawicki depended on his friends and family to help share what happened.
This is the story they told.
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