Bela Hazan

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Bella Hazan
Young Bella Hazan
Young Bella Hazan
Born December 1922
Rozyszcze, Poland
Died 2004 (aged 81–82)
Jerusalem, Isreal
Nationality Poland - Israel
Other names
  • Bella Ya'ari Hazan
  • Bronislawa Limanowska
Known for Heroically resisted the Nazi

Bela Hazan was member of the anti-Nazi resistance, during World War II, who was captured, and continued to resist, within the Auschwitz death camp.[1][2]

She survived the war, and passed away in Israel, in 2004.

When Germany captured her native country of Poland, and started to round up Jewish people, because Hazan's appearance measured up to the Nazi notion of a typical Aryan appearance, she was able to evade round-up.[1][2] She didn't use her freedom to hide and evade the struggle. Rather she served as a spy and courier for the resistance.

When she was captured by German security officials she was able to maintain her cover story that she was a Polish Christian, and resistance member, and she was entrusted with positions of some authority in the camps where she was held, including helping to manage a hospital ward at the Birkenau camp.[3]

Hazan was in the portion of Poland that fell under German occupation following the September 1939 invasion.[4] It took her three months to smuggle herself across the border to the zone of Soviet occupation, where she was finally able to join her mother and sibling, seeing them for the last time in December 1939.

After the Germans launched Operation Barabossa, in mid-1941, and occupied the rest of Poland, Hazan acquired the identity papers of a Polish acquaintance, Bronislawa Limanowska, and altered them by adding her own photo, and then volunteered to aid the German occupation forces, as a translator, so she could covertly undermine their efforts.[4] She used her cover to smuggle weapons and documents to the resistance, and help individuals to escape.

She fell under suspicion in April 1942, and was captured and tortured by the Gestapo, who never penetrated her cover identity.[4] She was re-associated with a friend, Lonka Korzybrodska, who was also able to pass as a Pole. The pair was able to remain together until Korzybrodska's death when the pair became infected with Typhus, in March 1943.

She was given responsibility at medical facilities within the camps in 1944.[4] She survived a forced march when her camp was about to captured by Soviet forces, late in the war, that killed many of her fellow captives. After Germany's defeat she made her way to Paris, where she dropped her cover identity. She then traveled to Italy, with other Jewish refugees, on her way to Palestine. She married in Palestine, and bore two children.

She was one of the first resistance members to arrive in Palestine.[1] She published a memoir, in Hebrew, entitled My name is Bronislawa.

References

[create] Documentation

Anna Heilman