Zofia and Franciszek Kuklo
Poland

Zofia Kuklo displayed uncommon courage when she and her husband Franciszek sheltered a family of eight Jews throughout all of World War II. They did this even though they had young children of their own and Franciszek was fighting the Nazis with the Underground. They took the family in after the Jews had initially stayed with the Kuklo's neighbor, a Gestapo collaborator. The Kuklos told their neighbor that if anything happened to the Jews, he would be the next to die.

Franciszek went into hiding and for the next four years Zofia alone protected her own four small children as well as the eight people in the Jewish family she sheltered. Zofia's oversize purchases of goods in the village aroused suspicion and the SS would come to her house to interrogate her. She once had to swear on a crucifix that she sheltered no Jews. Another time the SS raided her house and put a gun to her head. When asked if she sheltered Jews, Zofia again answered, "No."

Zofia also provided temporary shelter for other Jews and food to those she could not hide. Later in the war, when the danger of nighttime Nazi raids increased, she took her own children and slept in the fields, cellars and barns, telling the Jews to do the same. Her children became sick from these conditions but Zofia never wavered from her determination to save the family.

Zofia later moved to Chicago. She died in 1998, surrounded by loving children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.