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A Polish nun who was honored by Israel for helping to hide Jews in her convent during World War II died last week.
Sister Cecylia Maria Roszak OP, who was aged 110, is believed to have been the oldest nun in the world.
During the war, Roszak and eight other sisters were living in Vilnius in Lithuania where they had been stationed since 1938.
Lithuania was invaded by the Nazis in 1941 and was subject to German occupation until January 1945.
During this time, Sr. Roszak and her sisters, led by their superior, Mother Bertranda, hid 17 members of the Jewish resistance in their convent, risking their lives to do so.
One of those she helped was activist and writer Abba Kovner, who later testified at the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.
After the war, Israel awarded the nuns the “Righteous Among the Nations” medal, which it gave to non-Jewish people who risked their lives during the war to save Jews.
The World Holocaust Remembrance Center says the people who found refuge in the convent were members of illegal Jewish Zionist underground movements.
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