Hoffman Władysław & Janina (Tysnarzewska)

Hoffman, Władysław Hoffman, Janina In the summer of 1941, when the German Army occupied the town of Pomorzany, in the Tarnopol district, Filip Lilker, his wife Freda, and their five-year-old son, Emanuel, escaped. After arriving in the nearby town of Dunajow, the Lilkers rented an apartment in the home of Janina and Władysław Hoffman, where they lived before moving to another apartment. In the spring of 1943, all the Jews of Dunajow were deported, but since Lilker was the only pharmacist in the area, the local Ukrainian authorities allowed him and his family to stay. The Lilkers, realizing that it was only a matter of time before they, too, would be deported, asked the Hoffmans to prepare a hiding place for them in case of an emergency. Although the Hoffmans lived in the center of town, and were sometimes visited by their antisemitic Ukrainian neighbors, they agreed to do as requested. Soon after, the Lilkers were told to report to the Brzezany ghetto. Instead of obeying the order, they went to the Hoffmans, who hid them in the hiding place they had prepared for them in advance. After their disappearance, the Germans began searching high and low for the Jewish pharmacist and his family. They even turned up at the Hoffmans’ apartment, but Hoffman managed to persuade them that no one was hiding there. In risking their lives to save the Lilkers, the Hoffmans were guided by humanitarian motives, which overrode considerations of personal safety or economic hardship. The Lilkers stayed in their hiding place until the area was liberated in July 1944, after which they immigrated to Canada. It was only in the 1950s, after they traced their rescuers to central Poland, that they reestablished contact with them and began writing to them. On May 16, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Janina and Władysław Hoffman as Righteous Among the Nations.