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6644 ORCHARD LAKE ROAD AT MAPLE ROAD
MON-THUR-FRI 10-9 • TUE-WED-SAT 10-6 • SUN 12-5
855-1600

At*

We Care. \lie are
committed to the well
being of each of our
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Family owned and operated for over 33 years.
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6470 Alden Drive, Orchard Lake

Less than 20 minutes from Maple & Orchard Lake Rds.

l 363-4121 for our limousine to pick you up for a personal tour of our facility.

16

• .

FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1992

•

•

Righteous Gentile
Becomes Israeli Citizen

DAVID KOTZEN-REICH

Staff Writer

p

eter Vlcko of Lincoln
Park smiled broadly
last week after the
State of Israel made him an
honorary citizen. Israeli
citizenship was the ultimate
honor for the 80-year-old
former Slovak who risked
his life during World War II
to save more than 30 Jews,
including his wife and her
family.
But in a real twist to a
ceremony honoring him, Mr.
Vlcko handed a $1,000 check
to Israel Consul General
Yitschak Ben-Gad, who had
flown here from Chicago for
the occasion. The check was
to the State of Israel to help
resettle Soviet Jews there,
Mr. Vlcko said.
Mr. Vlcko (pronounced
Vootchko) had already been
recognized by the State of
Israel as a Righteous Gen-
tile, with a tree in his honor
at Yad Vashem, the Holo-
caust museum and memorial
in Jerusalem. But the short
outdoor ceremony last Fri-
day before his family and
friends at the Holocaust
Memorial Center in West
Bloomfield was the culmina-
tion of years as an outspoken
Zionist. Friday was also Mr.
Vlcko's birthday.
"I saw the transports go-
ing through the Szered
(Slovakia) station," Mr.
Vlcko said, explaining his
passion for Israel. "They
were horribly mistreated in
those cattle wagons. That
picture has always been in
my mind, and I decided I
would do nothing to harm
any man"
Mr. Vlcko has written
letters in support of Israel to
every American president
since Richard Nixon, he
said. "Israel deserves to
have its borders for its econ-
omic and strategic sur-
vival."
Mr. Ben-Gad said, "During
this very dark era there was
some light, and Mr. Vlcko
knew what was happening
was evil. But endangering his
own life and his family's, he
went and saved lives."
As a lieutenant colonel in
the Slovakian army, Mr.
Vlcko forged employment
papers for Jews showing
they were in occupations
that protected them from
deportation to concentration
camps. On another occasion,
a local hospital gave Mr.
Vlcko bread and sausage
after he told them about the

Jews suffering in train cars.
"We distributed the food to
the people in the cars after
first softening up the Ger-._
man guards with it," Mr.
Vlcko said.
Watching Friday's short
ceremony was his wife of 48 a"
years, Georgina Vlcko. Mrs.
Vlcko had just completed
high school in her hometown.:
of Bratislava, Slovakia,
when Peter Vlcko introduc-
ed himself to her at a cafe in
4
January of 1941.
"It was forbidden for him
to associate with Jews,"
Mrs. Vlcko said, and he
would have been killed if
discovered.
Mrs. Vlcko, then Georgina
Reichsfeld, had removed her 4
yellow star to enter the cafe
where Jews were not allow-
ed. The couple began seeing

"They were
horribly
mistreated in
those cattle
wagons. That
picture has
4
always been in my
-40
mind."

Peter Vick)

each other regularly. Mrs.
Vlcko said Peter told hex
later that he sensed she was
Jewish from the start.
Despite the danger from
the Gestapo, the couple were
married in a secret ...,
ceremony on March 25,
1944.
That summer, Georgin;
and her parents were held in,'
an internment camp in
Szered. Mr. Vlcko's sisters
falsified their own papers,
which they slipped through •I
the camp fence to the
Reichfelds, who used theta
to escape.
Mr. Vlcko, who had par-
ticipated in the Slovak
uprising against the Nazis,
arranged for the family to be 0
lodged with peasants in the
Carpathian Mountains. Bpr,_
this time, the Vlckos were
parents of a 3-month-old son,
who traveled with the group
through the front lines to
their refuge in the moun-
tains.
Mr. Vlcko said he neve*.
thought twice about his
efforts to save Jews. A'• ∎
longtime friend, Clara
Robins, an Auschwitz sur-
vivor, attributed his actions
to his belief in God.
"His whole family was like
that," she said. ❑

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