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Stefania (Fusia) Podgorska

Stefania was born to a Catholic family in a village near Przemysl. They lived on a large farm and cultivated several different crops. While her father worked with the farmhands in the fields, Stefania's mother, a trained midwife, managed the house and cared for her eight children.

1933-39: Stefania's father died in 1938 after an illness. With her mother's approval, she joined her sister in Przemysl in 1939. At 14 she worked in a grocery store owned by the Diamants, a Jewish family. They treated her like family, and she moved in with them when the Germans invaded [Poland] on September 14, 1939. But two weeks later, the Soviets occupied the city [under the German-Soviet Pact]. The grocery store stayed open; Stefania shopped in the market for food to sell to their customers.

1940-44: The Germans again occupied the city in June 1941. Like all Jews in Przemysl, the Diamants were forced into a ghetto. Stefania's mother was sent to Germany for forced labor; Stefania was 16 and left to care for her 6-year-old sister. She found an apartment outside the ghetto

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[Jesus] entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”—Luke 10:38-42

When Poland was invaded by the Nazis early in World War II, Stefania Podgórska was only fourteen years old, while her sister, Helena, was ten years younger. Their father had died in 1938, and their mother and brother were conscripted as forced laborers for the Nazis. Stefania worked as a clerk in a grocery store owned by a Jewish family until they were removed to a Jewish ghetto. As the Holocaust became increasingly terrifying, the two girls harbored thirteen Jewish people in the attic of their apartment, including

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Stefania Podgorska

All roads were blocked, so to Stefania’s despair, she could not go home to see if her family was okay. Months later, when she finally left the Diamants, she rushed home, only to find out her mother and brother had been taken to Germany as slave laborers. Her terrified 6 year-old sister, Helene, was staying with neighbors. Stefania and her sister stayed in their home comfortably. 1942 brought news of the liquidation of the ghetto and Stefania desperately wanted to help her friends. At the time, she was helping trade the Diamants’ valuables for food.
Time passed. Stefania heard a knock on the door, and in came a strange man – crying and bleeding terribly. It was the son of the Diamants, Max. He had frantically jumped out of a cattle car headed to the concentration camp Belzec, with only a loaf of bread underneath his shirt cushioning his fall. He had gone to multiple non-Jewish friends, but none would help him. Max begged Stefania to hid him, and Stefania readily agreed. Helene, although a bit uncertain at first, agreed to keep the secret.

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