Krystyna Tibika (Christine Tibika) was born as Fanny Kurc in 1937. Her father was Zalman (Zamek) Kurc, mother Raja (Raisa?) de domo Finkelsztajn (spelling of the surname uncertain).
Before the war, at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, they studied in Nancy (they did not complete their studies), and when they returned, they lived in Łódź, where Zamek came from.
What is known about Zamek - according to family accounts – is that, together with his cousin Michał Kurek, he owned weaving workshops in Zduńska Wola and Łódź, and he was a co-owner of a factory (possibly in Warsaw; according to archival materials from 1933 the company Sprzedaż Towarów Bławatnych i Galanteryjnych Michel Kurc – The Drapery and Mercery Merchandising Michel Kurc operated in Warsaw).
During World War II a significant part of the family, including Zamek with Raja and their daughter, moved to Warsaw. Zamek's father, Gedalje (Gedalia), rented an apartment there, believing it to be the safest city. Most of the family, including Zamek and Raja Kurc, perished in the Warsaw ghetto or in Treblinka. The child had been previously taken out of the ghetto to the so-called Aryan side. The girl was hidden by the Wajcman family (see the collection of photographs related to her hiding, in the museum's collection). Krystyna kept the name from that period for the rest of her life. Michał Kurc, who survived the war, knew about her whereabouts. In 1945 or 1946 he met his cousin Józef Czaplicki (Izydor Kurc before the war) in Warsaw and pointed them out to him. The Czaplicki family adopted Krystyna.
Krystyna earned her degree in chemistry from a technical school. From 1956 onwards, she worked at the Institute for Nuclear Research. In 1961, she married Leszek Niedziółka; they lived at 62 Nowy Świat street.
In 1968, she was dismissed from work at the Institute for Nuclear Research. Although thanks to the support of the community, she found employment elsewhere, she decided to leave due to the post-March atmosphere. She got a divorce, left for Israel, where she returned to the name Czaplicka; later simplified the spelling of the surname to Chaplin.
She worked as a chemist in Holon (in the Tel Aviv agglomeration). There she met Victor Tibika, a French Jew from Algiers. In April 1971, she moved to Paris. She married Victor in 1980. Her husband died in December 1984.
Przemysław Kaniecki