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Medal honour to former staff member

17 August 2005

Former Monash staff member Mrs Halina Hankus has accepted a medal, awarded posthumously to her father and uncle, who saved the life of a Jewish child in Poland during the Second World War.

From left: Mr Naftali Tamir; Mrs Bendix, Mrs Hankus with her grandchildren Emilio and Ashli Bendix.

Mrs Hankus, who worked at Monash for nearly 28 years, accepted the award honouring the late Mr Jan Ciechanowski and his brother Mr Stefan Ciechanowski as Righteous Among the Nations. She received the award from the Israeli Ambassador to Australia, Mr Naftali Tamir.

The Protestant Ciechanowski family of Krakow took in three-year-old Eva Pass and raised her as their own when all the members of her immediate family were sent to concentration camps by the German authorities occupying Poland. Mrs Hankus, who was five at the time, treated Eva as a sister.

The Ciechanowskis ran the risk of immediate execution if they were discovered. The story had a happy ending when Eva was reunited with her family at the end of the war.

Mrs Hankus, who worked as a technical officer in the Department of Pharmacology in the Faculty of Medicine from 1968 until 1996, attended the award ceremony at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick on Sunday 14 August.

"My father, my mother Maryla and my uncle were very brave, because the penalty for helping Jews at the time in Poland was death," Mrs Hankus said.

"There were more than 20 people, including the extended family and boarders, living in a small house and no-one betrayed their secret," she said.

Mrs Hankus's daughter, Mrs Dorothy Bendix, is a web development officer at Monash International. "The award is significant," Mrs Bendix said. "I am proud of the actions of my grandfather's family during such a trying time."