Mularczyk Maria

Mularczyk, Maria In June 1943, Lina Koch, a young girl who had lost her parents in the Tarnopol ghetto, in Eastern Galicia, managed to escape from the ghetto and somehow make her way to the city of Trembowla, where she had relatives. There she met her aunt Helena Selcer, who just days earlier had lost her family. Terrified and desperate, Selcer hid near her empty home with her young daughter Musia. Fearing that the police would discover their hiding place, Selcer, her daughter and niece left the city, and after weeks of wandering in the area, arrived in the village of Boryczowka, where they met Maria Mularczyk. Mularczyk’s pity for the Jewish fugitives overcame her fear, and she hid them in the haystack in her barn. Despite her own impoverished circumstances and the danger to her life, Mularczyk shared the little food she had with the Jewish fugitives and kept them safe without asking for or receiving anything in return, taking care of all their needs until their liberation in March 1944. After the war, Koch immigrated to Canada; Selcer and her daughter immigrated to Israel and Mularczyk settled within Poland’s postwar borders. On November 21, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Maria Mularczyk as Righteous Among the Nations.