Strzelecki Władysław & Strzelecka Zofia (Lisowska)

STRZELECKI, WŁADYSŁAW STRZELECKA, ZOFIA During the war, Władysław and Zofia Strzelecki lived in Stryj. When the war broke out, they were raising two young children - Ryszard and Danuta. In 1944, they had their third child, Alicja. One day in October of 1942 (following the second aktion in the Stryj ghetto), Zofia Strzelecka entered the flat of a Jewish family, the Lazars, and offered to buy them some milk. Sabina Lazar asked for somebody who would agree to shelter some Jews. A few days later, Zofia returned and said that, after consulting with her husband Władysław, they were ready to hide Sabina’s family. On November 30, 1942 - one day before the ghetto was to be closed - Leon and Sabina Lazar and their three sons, Jacob, Salotor, and Marek, (ten, eleven, and fourteen respectively) were given shelter in the Strzelecki home. In the home there was a larder measuring eight by two meters where Leon Lazar arranged a wooden wall that divided the larder into two parts. There was a doorway in the wall covered by hanging shelves. In a cabin behind the wall, the Lazar family hid until the liberation of Stryj on August 5, 1944. In February of 1944, Władysław was arrested for collaboration with the partisans. For six weeks he was in jail. Meanwhile, Zofia single-handedly took care of the Jewish family. “We shared everything. Our money was spent on food so that the two families could survive,” wrote Jacob Lazar in his testimony to Yad Vashem. Leon Lazar passed away in Poland in 1953. Later, Sabina immigrated to Israel along with her sons. On November 22, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Władysław Strzelecki and his wife, Zofia Strzelecka, as Righteous Among the Nations.