Heroes of the Holocaust: Anton Sukhinski

Many residents of the Polish city of Zborov thought of Anton Sukhinski as the “village idiot”, alone and ostracized Sukhinski led a simple life to be sure. Perpetually alone, always on the verge of abject poverty, but eternally kind and fond of all living things, Sukhinski would become an unlikely hero in the tempest that was the Holocaust.

Following the German invasion of Poland the Zeigers, a Jewish family in Zborov, were offered assistance from Sukhinski, despite the obvious fate of the city’s Jews they were not terribly responsive to his offer of help. They would change their minds in 1943 when rumors swirled that the Nazis were intent upon exterminating the city’s Jewish population.

Sukhinski hid the four members of the Zeiger family, along with two other young women, in his cellar. It wasn’t long before Sukhinski’s neighbors found out about the Jews hiding in Sukhinski’s cellar, in short order the neighbors had extorted all of the Zeiger family’s money from them to keep their secret. The Zeiger’s resistance to further extortion led to a gunfight that caused the Zeigers to flee for fear of drawing the Nazi’s attention by the gunshots.

The Zeiger family was quickly forced to return to Sukhinski’s house for shelter, Sukhinski welcomed them back and hid them in his attic until he could dig a second, more concealed cellar. The new cellar was far smaller, offering no room to move about and the only source of light was provided by a kerosene lamp. Fearing a second detection by Sukhinski’s neighbors, the occupants would not leave the cellar for the next nine months.

For the next nine months Sukhinski would be the Zeiger family’s only link to the outside world, bring them their food and even tending to the bucket that served as the family’s toilet. The man that had lived his whole life in destitution was now forced to provide food for himself as well as six more people, not an easy task.

The threat of detection was an ever present fear for Sukhinski and his friends in the cellar, whether from the Germans or his neighbors. There was at least one episode in which the Germans searched Sukhinski’s home, fortunately they were not able to find the people hiding in the cellar and they managed to avoid detection.

When Zborov was liberated from the Germans and Sukhinski opened the cellar to let his Jewish friends out, it was the first time they had seen the light of day in nine months. All six of the people that were in that cellar survived to the end of the war with Sukhinski’s help.

For his efforts to protect the Zeiger family from Nazi persecution and almost certain death, Anton Sukhinski was honored by Yad Vashem as being Righteous among the Nations, an honor bestowed upon non-Jews who risked their lives to aid the Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Copyright© 2012 R. Bertz; all rights reserved.

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Retrieved from: http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/sukhinski.asp