During the Second World War in Chorzelów, in today’s Podkarpackie Voivodeship, the Szyfner family showed extraordinary courage and humanism.  Risking their own lives, they decided to help the Jews persecuted by the Germans.

Józef and Katarzyna Szyfner, together with their son Eugeniusz, created a safe shelter for people who were fleeing from German terror. At that time, the occupied Poland was the only land where the occupier introduced the death penalty for helping Jews.

Eugeniusz worked on the estate of Karol Stanisław Tarnowski in Chorzelów.  When the German Holocaust policy reached the Jewish community of Chorzelów, the Polish family risked everything to give shelter to people in need. In 1942, without her husband’s knowledge, Katarzyna took Maksymilian Gross, the Heller family and David and Matilda Zuckerbrodt into her home. Catherine’s husband, upon discovering that there were Jews hiding under his roof, accepted her decision, having in mind the crime of burning Jews in one of the synagogues that he had witnessed in 1939.

Struggling with limited resources, the Szyfner family was determined to provide food for the hidden.  Eugeniusz played a key role in the aid effort, obtaining food with difficulty and concealing grain. He also created hiding places for the Jews in the chicken coop and in the attic.

After the Second World War, the Szyfners’ survivors started a new life, not forgetting their saviours. In 1996, Eugeniusz (died 18 March 2007) and Katarzyna (died 1978) were honoured with the title “Righteous Among the Nations”, and Eugeniusz also received the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Rebirth of Poland for his work.