Prochera Stefan & Natalia

Prochera, Stefan Prochera, Natalia In late 1942, a few dozen Jews from Gliniany, in the Przemyslany county, in Eastern Galicia, were sent to a forced-labor camp located near the town, where they worked on a farm under German supervision. In the summer of 1943, a rumor began to spread among the prisoners that the Germans were planning to liquidate the camp. A number of prisoners subsequently fled to the surrounding forests, living off food provisions that one of the escaped prisoners, Abraham Szlumper, bought for them from a farmer acquaintance of his in the nearby village of Zeniow. Among those who gave them food free of charge was a woman farmer, whose married daughter lived in the village. When winter came, the farmer took pity on Szlumper and told him to go to the home of her daughter and son-in-law, Natalia and Stefan Prochera, who agreed to hide him. Szlumper also asked the Procheras to hide his sister, whose husband had been murdered and who remained all alone in the forest, and after some hesitation, they agreed to hide her, too. The Prochera family prepared a hiding place for the Jewish fugitives under their granary, and hid them at their own expense for eight months. The Prochera family lived among hostile Ukrainians that constantly hunted for Jews hiding in the area. At a certain point, the Procheras asked Szlumper and his sister to leave the hiding place and go back to the forest, but Szlumper, who was ill at the time, entered their home and asked for their mercy. Despite the danger to their lives, they agreed to let Szlumper and his sister remain in hiding on their farm, and Natalia Prochera got down on her knees to beg God to help them. Before the liberation, nationalist Ukrainians began killing their Polish neighbors and the Procheras were forced to abandon their home and seek asylum in a different village. Before leaving their home, they made sure to bring Szlumper and his sister to a group of Jews hiding in the forest, where they remained untilthe liberation. The Procheras actions to save the two Jews’ lives during the occupation was motivated by their sense of humanity, for which they neither asked for nor received anything at all in return. After the war, Szlumper and his sister immigrated to Israel and the Procheras moved to an area within the new Polish borders. On November 29, 1977, Yad Vashem recognized Natalia Prochera and her husband Stefan Prochera as Righteous Among the Nations.