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      Archive: 6/17/2009
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        6/17/2009, Sivan 25, 5769

      Righteous Gentile Gets Israel Burial


      The ashes of a Polish man who hid and saved 12 Jewish escapees from the Warsaw Ghetto in an apartment he rented for them were buried in the Kiryat Shaul cemetery in Tel Aviv Tuesday along with those of his wife. Two of the people Jerzy Wunsche saved in 1943, Yosef Atlasowicz and Miriam Sherman, attended the funeral. Sherman, who was a baby at the time, was raised by Wunsche for three years after World War II ended before he handed her over to the Jewish Agency.

      When Wunsche died a year ago his family discovered his will called for him to be buried under the tree planted in his honor at Yad Vashem. His wife Zofia’s wishes were to be buried beside her husband. When burial at the museum proved impossible, Atlasowicz and Yad Vashem arranged for the couple's burial in the portion of the Kiryat Shaul cemetery reserved for righteous gentiles. "He was a very modest man," said Wunsche's son John. "He thought what he was doing was normal, and that everyone should have done it."