CNN - Holocaust survivor owes her life to 'righteous gentile'

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Genia Melzer and Julian Bilecki as teenagers and today, 55 years later.
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Genia Melzer was destined to die at the hands of the Nazis, but the Jewish teen-ager -- now a great- grandmother -- owes her life to a "righteous gentile" named Julian Bilecki. After 55 years, a grateful Genia got to say thanks. Again.

When she was 17 in her native Poland, Genia's entire family was decimated by German troops during World War II. People were being taken away and never seen again.

"The only reason was because we were Jewish," she told CNN. "I lost uncles, aunts, my brother, cousins and all my friends."

The young girl and others in her town ran off, but when their hiding place was discovered, their tormentors hauled them into a shack, guns drawn. Recalling the moment brings back the horror for Genia.

"I lay down on the floor with my head down, and my little cousin, 9 years old, lay down on my right side," she says, her voice quivering. "They started shooting, but I wasn't shot." ( 498 K/22 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

A teen-age Genia Melzer poses, bottom row, second from left, with family members in her native Poland.

'They thought I was dead'

But the nightmare wasn't over.

"They thought I was dead ... but when ... a little girl coughed, they came with an ax and started chopping."

Genia survived the second assault, too, still pretending to be dead.

"They took us to this (mass) grave and they (threw) all the people (into it) and I was on top."

Covered with blood, she ran into a forest and hid -- a young woman alone, desperate to live.

"The willpower to survive was so strong, even under those circumstances."

Julian Bilecki, himself a teen-ager at the time, made that survival possible.

As millions of Jews perished in Europe, he and his brother, Roman, stood in the way of the Nazis, hiding 23 people, including Genia, in their home.

'It was like heaven'

"They were afraid. (They) came to my house and asked for help," he remembers. "We dug a hole in the ground and made a roof with branches and covered it with dirt. We burned wood and cooked only at night. It's hard to believe we all lived through that terrible time."

Bilecki and Melzer

When the Bilecki brothers visited the dark bunker "it was like heaven," Genia says.

Now, heaven has come again. More than half a century after the ordeal, the Jewish survivor and her Christian protector -- a righteous gentile as he is called by the Jews -- were reunited this month in New York by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which honored him for his humanity.

Once forced to see each other in darkness and fear, they were together again -- like family.

Genia says she can never repay the gift she received 55 years ago. "Only God," she adds, can do that.

Correspondent Maria Hinojosa contributed to this report.