Meller Józef & Eugenia ; Daughter: Krzysztow Helena (Meller); Daughter: Woźniak Stefania (Meller)

Meller, Józef Meller, Eugenia Woźniak- Meller, Stefania Krzysztow- Meller, Helena Józef and Eugenia Meller lived in the village of Sielec near Przemysl with their two divorced daughters and their children: Stefania Woźniak, and her daughter, Józefa; and Helena Krzysztow and her son, Jan. Despite the fact that they lived in a small apartment with only a living room, a kitchen, a larder, and a cellar, and their only income was Józef’s pension, from 1942 to 1944, they sheltered five Jews. From October 1942 onwards, they hid Richard Freyer, the two-and-a-half-year-old son of Oskar and Barbara Freyer. The child had been taken out of the Przemysl ghetto and brought to the Mellers by Pelagia Wlodek, a friend of the Freyers’, and her lodger, Mr. Szupelak. Barbara and Oskar joined their son in hiding with the Mellers in April 1943, together with Barbara’s mother, Gizela Stern. Soon afterwards, they were joined by Henryk Schechter (later Zwi Sharon), a friend of the Freyers’. Józef constructed a shelter under the sofa in the living room in case of danger, and all the five survived until the liberation in July 1944. The Freyers paid the Mellers $20 per month, which Pelagia Wlodek exchanged into Polish zloty. It was a tiny sum compared to the risk the family was taking in sheltering Jews, which they did for moral and humanitarian reasons, according to Oskar. On January 4, 1987, Yad Vashem recognized Józef Meller, his wife, Eugenia Meller, and their daughters, Stefania Woźniak and Helena Krzysztow, as Righteous Among the Nations.