Baran Józef & Eleonora

Baran, Eleonora Baran, Józef Before the German occupation, Zygmunt Kranz lived in Boryslaw together with his wife, Francieszka, and their three-year-old son, Henryk. In 1941, when all the Jews of the surrounding area were interned in the Boryslaw ghetto, Zygmunt was selected for forced labor at a petroleum plant in the Horodyszcze neighborhood. That September, he became acquainted with a fellow-worker, Józef Baran, who warned him of the impending deportation of the Jews, and offered to shelter him and his family until the danger had subsided. Zygmunt accepted the proposal, and in the dead of night brought over his wife and child to the Barans’ house. The operation to rescue the Kranz family, which had begun as a humanitarian gesture, became a protracted personal obligation. Zygmunt, who believed that as a worker in the German arms industry he would be able to live in the labor camp established by the plant in Horodyszcze even after the ghetto had been liquidated, paid occasional visits to his wife and son in their hiding-place. When the danger of discovery increased, Zygmunt and Baran dug a pit under the floor of the room, to serve as a refuge for the Kranz family. Later, a second hideout was dug in the courtyard of the house, and in January 1943, Zygmunt escaped from the labor camp and joined his wife and son. The fugitives were penniless, but Baran bought them a little food in exchange for their possessions. Eleonora assisted her husband in all that he did. She grew vegetables in the garden, in order to be able to feed the Jews in her care, and kept their existence secret from her children. The Barans requested no recompense from the Kranz family; love of their fellow human beings and the friendly relationship that had arisen between the two families during the occupation were the sole grounds for their actions. The friendship continued even after the liberation in August 1944 and the emigration of the Kranz family to Australia after the war. For many years, the latter sent the Barans a monthly stipend in gratitude for their heroic selflessness. On May 31, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Józef and Eleonora Baran as Righteous Among the Nations.