Jorek Blocher papers

The Jorek Blocher papers include Blocher’s personal narrative and a newspaper clipping about the narrative. The personal narrative is handwritten in Yiddish and describes Blocher’s wartime experiences in his hometown in Michaliszki, Poland (now Michališki, Belarus) and being hidden by the Dąbrowski family in an isolated cottage near Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). The diary includes four photographs of Jorek Blocher, Konstantyn and Elena Dąbrowski, and the Szapiro and Zilber families. The newspaper clipping is a 1963 article in Yiddish by Y. Schmulowits from the Forward and describes Blocher’s life and his personal narrative. Jorek Blocher (1913-1996) was born in Michaliszki, Poland (now Michališki, Belarus) to Casper and Esther (Kornetsky) Blocher. During the Holocaust he was sheltered and fed for nine months by Konstantyn and Elena Dąbrowski and their five children who lived in an isolated cottage near Wilno, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania). The Dąbrowski family had previously sheltered the Szapiro and Bilic families from Podbrodziany. Jorek had to leave when local peasants began suspecting that the Dąbrowskis were hiding Jews, and he wandered from place to place until the area was liberated by the Red Army. Jorek and wife Ruth (Bolber) Blocher (1925-2004, born in Wilno to Yeruchim and Ita Bolber) immigrated to the United States after the war and lived in Southington, CT, where Jorek was a successful self-employed real estate and investment businessman. On May 4, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Konstantyn Dąbrowski and Elena Dąbrowska as Righteous Among the Nations.