BS”D 16 Sivan 5781 Róża Rock, born Grossman on 27 May 1871 was the founder of a modern educational centre for Jewish orphans in Kraków. In 1918 she was in charge of the “ Megadle Jesomim” Association, called “Association of Jewish Women for the Defence and Education of Orphans”. In 1922 it changed its name into “Bet Megadle Jesomim” and “Association of the Educational Centre of Jewish Orphans in Krakow. The children had a basic education and learnt skills that would allow them to cater for themselves after leaving the orphanage. She had the building of the Association on ul. Dietla renewed, which improved the conditions of the orphans. The works were supervised by her husband, Łazarz Rock, an architect and a councillor of the city of Kraków. In 1937…

BS”D 15 Sivan 5781 Artur Stefan Nacht-Samborski was born on 26 May 1898, originally Artur Nacht. His parents were Joel Nacht and Sara Weindlig. He was a painter and a professor, in Sopot, of the Gdansk Higher School of Plastic Arts, as well as a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He studied painting from 1918 to 1921 in the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków under Józef Mehoffer and Wojciech Weiss. In this free time he liked to box. During the occupation he was in Lvov. Rescued from the ghetto of that city by friends, he hid near Warsaw with the assumed name of Stefan Samborski. He legally changed his name in 1956 into Stefan Artur Nacht-Samborski. Further information in English: https://culture.pl/en/artist/stefan-artur-nacht-samborski Translation Dr. D. Cohen

BS”D 14 Sivan 5781 Dawid Alter Kurzmann was born in Rzeszow on 25 May 1865. In Kraków he was a trader and a philanthropist. He came to this city in 1887 and lived in Kazimierz on ul. Mostowa 10. After the expulsion in 1941 he was forced to live near Plac Zgody 16 (today’s Plac Bohaterów Getta). He was connected to the chassidic movement and with the Reb Aron house of prayer on ul. Józefa 33. At the same time he was active in the Agudat (“Agudat Israel” , an international political party among Orthodox Jews) and was the vice-president of its Kraków branch. He was active also in the Jewish Community, where he was a council member and responsible for religious matters. Starting already a few years before the…

BS”D 12 Sivan 5781 Gizela Reicher-Thon, may she rest in peace, was born on 23 May 1904. She was a researcher of literature, called the mother of Polish Comparative Literature. In 1914 she finished her general schooling and then studied in private girls’ secondary school. In 1922 she passed her school exam and then read Polish and English philology, linguistic and philosophy in the Jagiellonian University. She defended her doctoral thesis in 1927 while still a student. After that, she worked as a teacher in a Secondary School and in a Jewish charity called Central for the Associations for Orphan Care. In 1933 her doctoral thesis was published. What happened to her in the Second World War is unknown. Photograph from National Archives in Kraków. Translation Dr D Cohen