JUST BEING HUMAN WOMAN HONORED, 60 YEARS AFTER HELPING BOY EVADE NAZIS.

Byline: DENNIS MCCARTHY 

There will come a time tonight during the Interfaith Holocaust Memorial Service at Valley Beth Israel when everyone will gather around the guest of honor - Lidia Furmanski, a Righteous Gentile - to say thank you and give her a hug.

The 79-year-old Polish woman will lower her head and be embarrassed because she always gets embarrassed when people tell her what a brave, wonderful thing she did 60 years ago - putting her own life in jeopardy to hide and rescue Jewish children in her Warsaw neighborhood from the Nazis.

She never thought she was being brave, Lidia will say, she was just being human.

``I did what I could,'' she says, simply. ``I hid Jews. I helped them escape.''

How could she stand by during those terrifying times, and see children she knew condemned to death simply because they had been born Jewish?

She couldn't, so she did what she had to do - she helped them escape, like 6-year-old Joey Shipiro from her neighborhood.

For weeks, she led the scared, little boy - who would lose most of his family to the concentration camps - down back roads and through dense woods at night to avoid Nazi patrols.

They survived on vegetables given to them by people who didn't ask questions. When there were no vegetables left, Lidia sold her watch and rings to feed herself and the little boy.

And when they finally reached Krakow, their destination, she knelt down in front of gates that read, ``Red Cross,'' hugged the boy and told him he would be safe here.

Joe Shapiro never forgot her. How could he? She had saved his life.

The boy grew up to be an officer in the Israeli army, and in 1987, with the help of the Red Cross, he finally tracked Lidia down to a Burbank house where she lived.

With his own hugs and tearful thanks, Shapiro brought one other thing with him to give to the woman who had made it possible for him to have a family, a career, a life: one of the highest awards given by the Israeli government to non-Jews who helped its people survive the Holocaust.

Lidia Furmanski was named a Righteous Gentile - one of more than 1,700 non-Jews in 13 countries honored by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous in New York, says co-founder Rabbi Harold Schulweis of Valley Beth Shalom in Encino.

The foundation helps the Israeli government research, document and authenticate the Holocaust experiences, then brings rescuer and rescued, if they are still alive, together at an annual awards dinner, he says.

They will light 12 candles tonight to commemorate International Holocaust Day, Rabbi Len Muroff says.

Six will be lit by six members of his congregation - six Holocaust survivors honoring the 6 million Jews killed.

Another five candles honoring the 5 million others who died in World War II will be lit by five local students who attend St. Genevieve's Catholic Church in Panorama City and the Panorama Presbyterian Church.

The 12th candle will be lit by the Rev. Samuel Sarkissian of the Glendale Presbyterian Church, who will also share his experiences concerning the Armenian genocide.

Christians and Jews taking part in an Interfaith Holocaust Memorial Service.

It's important, Rabbi Muroff says, that the Jewish community and the community at large acknowledge other people's tragedies, as well as the Holocaust.

``We are not alone,'' he says, simply.

It is also important to remember the Lidia Furmanskis of the world, and to honor them while they are still living.

``At the height of the darkest period in our history, non-Jews risked their lives to help us, and we should never forget that,'' Rabbi Muroff says.

So, yes, there will come a time tonight at the Sun Valley temple when everyone will gather around the guest of honor - a Righteous Gentile - to say thank you and give her a hug.

And Lidia Furmanski will humbly say what she always says when she gets embarrassed about being called a hero.

She will say she wasn't being brave. She was just being human.

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(color) Lidia Furmanski, here with Rabbi Len Muroff, will be honored today as a Righteous Gentile for hiding Jews in her native Poland from the Nazis during World War II, and for walking one little boy through danger to the safety of the Red Cross. It's one of the highest awards given by the Israeli government to non-Jews.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer