Ivan Wraneticz, Righteous Gentile, dies

Wraneticz, who was from the ex-Yugoslavia, hid Jews in his home during the Shoah and then immigrated to Israel. He was he chairman of the Association of Righteous Gentiles in Israel.

Ivan Wraneticz, a Righteous Gentile, died on February 3, 2010 and was laid to rest the following day in a Catholic funeral service celebrated in Hebrew by Father Gregor Pawlowski, he too a survivor of the Shoah.

Wraneticz, who lived in Holon, saved Jews from his town of Toposcu which was in Yugoslavia. At the age of seventeen, he endangered his life, building hiding places for Jews and providing hem with food. A mother, Erna Montilyu, her daughter, her sister and her mother hid in the home of his parents. After the war, when Erna immigrated to Israel, Ivan followed her and they married and established a home here.

Many people attended the funeral including representatives of the local government and of Yad VaShem, first among them the former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau, himself a survivor of the Shoah.