Likos Piotr & Apolonia ; Daughter: Natalia

Likos Apolonia Likos Piotr Likos Natalia In October 1942, shortly after the liquidation of the Annopol ghetto, in the Lublin district, a number of Jews managed to escape from the transport taking the local Jews to one of the death camps. Some of them managed, with enormous difficulty, to reach the nearby village of Opoka Duza, where they found shelter in the surrounding forested hills, near a small rural estate that belonged to the Likos family. Among the fugitives were five members of the Brener family, Moshe Kestenbaum with his three children, and Ester Zakalik. When the Brener and Kestenbaum children became ill with rubella and dysentery in their open-air hideout, Piotr Likos decided to transfer both families to his small, one-roomed house. Likos prepared hiding places for the ten refugees in the attic, the stable and pen where he, his wife, Apolonia, and daughter, Natalia, looked after them devotedly. In risking their lives to save Jewish refugees, the Likos family was guided by humanitarian and religious considerations only. One day, after a tip-off to the authorities, German policemen raided their home. Luckily, most of the Jewish fugitives managed to escape to the nearby forest. The Likos couple and Iza Ler, a woman hiding with the Likos family, were less fortunate, and were killed on the spot. Natalia, who managed to escape through the window, joined the fugitives in the forest, and stayed with them until July 1944, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, most of the survivors immigrated to Israel, while others emigrated to Argentina and the United States. For many more years, they kept up contact with Natalia, to whose parents they owed their lives. On October 27, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Apolonia and Piotr Likos and their daughter, Natalia, as Righteous Among the Nations. File No. 5769