Kocún Štefan

Kocún, Štefan Zvi Zimmermann arrived in Slovakia with a wave of Jews fleeing Poland in 1943, at a time when deportations from Slovakia had temporarily ceased. The smugglers from both the Polish and the Slovakian sides of the border were foresters who knew the area well and could guide people through the forest and across the border over the Carpathian Mountains. The Polish underground activists knew about this smuggling network and referred those who requested to flee to Michal Lomnicki* (volume Poland), who worked from the Polish side. Zvi Zimmermann had been in the Krakow ghetto until it was liquidated and then he was in the forced-labor camp, Julag III, before escaping and meeting with Michal Lomnicki. Lomnicki was already hiding a few other Jews in different hiding places and they too were waiting to be smuggled across the border to Slovakia, and from there to Hungary. When they arrived in Slovakia, they were handed over to the forester Štefan Kocún, who hid them in the depths of the forest. After a short stay, Kocún relocated them at night to Prešov, the nearest city. He brought the group to the courtyard of a synagogue and handed them to representatives of the Jewish community – the rescue activists – who were prepared to absorb the refugees. The latter supplied them with the necessary papers and smuggled them to Hungary when the time was right. The smugglers supplied the fleeing Jews with food while they were under their care. The border crossings were arduous and the refugees carried the ones who had trouble walking on their shoulders. Hundreds of refugees were smuggled by them in this way. Those foresters who were captured along the way were executed along with the Jews who were trying to steal across the border. When the Germans occupied Hungary in 1944, Zimmermann managed to escape to Romania and from there he went to Eretz Israel. On October 8, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Štefan Kocún as Righteous Among the Nations.