Kuriat Yuzef, Frantsyshka, Zygmunt and Olha

During the Holocaust, the Kuriat family saved a seven-year-old Jewish boy, Shiia Fleish. Before the war, he lived with his parents in Berezne. On July 12, 1941, the Nazis occupied the settlement. A ghetto was created in the city, where about 4 thousand Jews were exterminated during two and a half years of occupation. In the winter of 1941, Shiia's parents became victims of the Nazis. The little one survived then, somehow ended up alone in the forest and wandered for a long time, until Zygmunt Kuriat came across him. The man took the Jewish child and brought him home.

The family gladly accepted the boy and took care of him. However, danger came from nowhere. Neighbors reported to the occupation authorities that the Kuriat family was hiding a Jewish child, and they rushed to their place with a search. Zygmunt's parents – Yuzef and Frantsyshka – were at home, and he worked in the field together with his wife and Shiia. Not finding the Jewish boy, the occupiers set the Kuriat house on fire, where Yuzef and his wife were burned alive. Zygmunt, Olha and Shiia, seeing their home in flames from afar, fled to the forest, where they hid until the end of the German occupation of the region. After the war, the family was resettled in Poland, where in 1946 they handed the boy over to Jewish institutions.

In 1986, Yad Vashem recognized Yuzef and Frantsyshka Kuriat and their son Zygmunt with his wife Olha as Righteous Among the Nations.

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