Nosol Piotr & Aniela

Nosol, Piotr Nosol, Aniela Krzeszowiec, Karol Krzeszowiec, Janina One day in 1942, Genia Neuberger set out from the Kolomyja ghetto, in Eastern Galicia, to the nearby town of Gwozdziec to barter a dress for food. She came to the home of the Nosol family, prior acquaintances. Because the hour was late and she was afraid to return to the ghetto, Aniela Nosol suggested that she spend the night at their house. The next day, after they learned that an Aktion was being carried out in the ghetto, Neuberger remained with the Nosols and one night turned into two years. Genia’s mother Dora, and a few weeks later, her brother David and his wife, also managed to escape from the ghetto and they too arrived at the Nosol home. Although the Nosol family was poor, barely eking out a living from Piotr’s work as a shoemaker, they warmly welcomed the Jewish fugitives, who arrived with only the clothes on their backs. The members of the Nosol family shared the little food they had with them, without asking for or receiving anything in return. The Nosol home was located in the center of town, and some neighbors suspected that they were hiding Jews. A number of searches were conducted of their home, and although the fugitives were not discovered, they all lived in constant fear. At the same time, the Nosols’ daughter Janina and her husband Karol Krzeszowiec, who lived on the edge of town, hid five other local Jews under similar circumstances – three brothers named Bergman, and Zolman and Stela Preschel. “We could not refuse to help them. They were being persecuted by the Ukrainian and German police and came to us for help, asking us to hide them,” Karol Krzeszowiec testified many years later. Janina and Karol Krzeszowiec were also suspected of hiding Jews, and two searches of their premises were conducted. Janina Krzeszowiec was arrested in one of the searches. She was interrogated for two weeks, but did not reveal the presence of Jews in their home. After the war, the survivorshidden by the Nosol and Krzeszowiec families scattered all over the world, immigrating to Israel, the United States, Canada and Argentina. They always remembered their benefactors as honest and decent individuals willing to risk their lives to save them. They corresponded with them for many years, and in 1977, the Krzeszowiec family, which after the war moved to an area within the new borders of Poland, visited the Bergman family in their home in Canada. On January 5, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Aniela Nosol and her husband Piotr Nosol, and Janina Krzeszowiec and her husband Karol Krzeszowiec as Righteous Among the Nations.