Oldest nun dies, a true hero.

Sister Cecylia Maria Roszak (1908-1918)

A Polish nun who was believed to be the oldest nun in the world was recognized as a rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust when millions died. She passed away a few days ago in Poland at the age of 110. The faithful have been reflecting on the turbulent and compassionate life of Sister Cecylia Maria Roszak, and described her as merciful and modest. During her 110 years on this earth, the nun went through turbulent times. Born March 25, 1908, she joined the convent at age 21. During the German occupation of Poland in World War II, when she was in her 30s, she was one of several nuns who set up a new convent near Vilnius, today in Lithuania. It was there where she began sheltering more than a dozen Jewish people who had escaped the ghetto there. After the war, the nun and others from her convent were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust remembrance institute. Yad Vashem praised them for saving the lives of several Jews, actions that put them at risk of being executed by German occupiers.
It was a time when Jews from across Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe were rounded up, and either transported to extermination camps where they were gassed, shot locally, or starved and abused in ghettos and labor camps until they died. However, at least some survived thanks to Sister Cecylia. A woman, Wanda Jerzyniec sent a massive bouquet at her funeral. Sister Cecylia sheltered the woman along with her brother after Germans shot both of their parents in Vilnius in 1944. The funeral Mass was at the Dominican nuns’ church in Krakow. Roszak was laid to rest in the city’s historic Rakowicki cemetery. Sister Cecylia Maria Roszak leaves behind generations who could live because of her faithful acts.