Zahava Burack (née Radza, December 14, 1932 – September 28, 2001) was a Jewish Holocaust survivor from Poland who went on to become a well-known philanthropist, community leader and political activist in the United States. During her childhood, she survived the Holocaust by hiding with her family in a crawlspace beneath the home of a Polish Catholic family for two and a half years. After the liberation of occupied Poland in 1945, she was smuggled to Israel, where she lived for twelve years, two of which she spent serving with the Haganah paramilitary organization. In 1958, Burack moved to the United States, where she worked with both American and Israeli politicians for Jewish causes. Surviving the Holocaust Zahava Burack was born in 1932 in the shtetl of Nowy Korczyn, Poland, to Louis and Gitla Radza. Louis was a juice manufacturer. Burack had three sisters, Rita, Miriam and Sarah. In 1942, at the age of 9, Burack, her parents, and her sisters Miriam and Sarah were forced into hiding after German soldiers instructed the Jewish residents of Nowy Korczyn to march to the railway station for "relocation." Her parents, aware that this was a euphemism for deportation to concentration camps, slipped out of the line unseen to escape. In the confusion, her older sister Rita became separated from the family and boarded the train; she was eventually taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The Radza family sought refuge with a Polish Catholic family, Stephania and Jozef Macugowski. Jozef was an old friend of Louis Radza's, and had previously offered assistance if the family ever required it. To hide the Radza family, the Macugowskis dug a secret trench beneath the floorboards of their home. The crawlspace was no more than wide, long, and deep. The family would spend the next two and a half years hidden within, their presence a secret not only from the outside world, but from the Macugowskis' children and elderly parents as well. Over that span of time, several other Jewish people sought refuge with the Macugowskis. Eventually, nine refugees, including a cousin of the Radzas, were packed inside. Much later, Burack's sister Miriam described their packed state to reporters: "When one turned on his side, the others would have to do the same. We were like sardines." The Macugowskis would come down at night to bring the family bread, water, and a bucket for waste. The Radzas,