They could have shut their eyes and minded their own business as so many people did in 1940s Poland. But when a three-year-old Jewish boy landed on their doorstep so to speak the Bulik family — bakers by profession — opened their hearts and gave the child a home. Michael Bulik proprietor of Canada’s Bulik Bakery tells the tale.
When World War II broke out in 1939 the Buliks’ bakery which was founded by Ignacy Bulik in 1912 was already a well-known Warsaw institution. Despite the war the Buliks along with Warsaw’s other non-Jewish residents could go about their daily routines and even enjoy themselves — as long as they didn’t openly rebel against their German occupiers. The situation was very different for Warsaw’s more than 400 000 Jews who were crammed into an area just over one square mile in size which became the Warsaw Ghetto.
Ignacy Bulik’s 18-year-old daughter Wanda therefore was able to continue with her private dance lessons at a music and language school on 25 Common Street in downtown Warsaw. One morning during her regular commute from the suburban area where her family lived to her school Wanda was stopped by the train conductor who thought she worked for the Red Cross. The conductor pointed to a three-year-old boy who was sitting by himself on the train crying and said “This is the third time I’ve seen this boy taking the train on this route from Minsk to Warsaw. We need to help him. Why don’t you take care of this child?”
In a 2008 interview with Polish magazine Wysokie Obcasy Wanda Bulik recalled that she had a feeling that the little boy was Jewish but “I didn’t care. He was nicely dressed with a full head of blond hair. I liked him.”
But when she took the boy home her father saw things differently.
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