Szyfner Katarzyna (Migut); Son: Eugeniusz

Szyfner Katarzyna Szyfner Eugeniusz In the autumn of 1941, during the bloody Aktion against the Jews of Mielec, the five members of the Heller family, who managed to escape the massacre, hid on the Szyfners’ farm on the nearby Chorzelów estate, in the county of Mielec, in the Rzeszów district. During a Gestapo raid of the estate, four of them were discovered and shot on the spot. Jankiel Heller was the only one who managed to escape and hide. After wandering around for a while, Jankiel returned to the Szyfners asking for help. Katarzyna decided to shelter Heller, despite opposition by her husband, who was concerned for the family’s safety. During the aforementioned raid of the estate in which the four Hellers were discovered and killed, Katarzyna had also managed to warn Dr. Maksymilian Gross, a jurist, who was hiding on a neighboring farm, of the danger. Thanks to her, Gross survived and after the Gestapo left, asked the Szyfners for shelter. Katarzyna, with the help of her son, Eugeniusz, hid the fugitives in a farm building without informing her husband. When the latter came across the fugitives on his farm, he pretended he hadn’t seen them. In March 1942, Katarzyna and Eugeniusz also took in Dawid and Matylda Zuckerbrodt, a refugee couple who had fled during the liquidation of the Mielec ghetto. Eugeniusz arranged a more comfortable hiding place for the four refugees in the loft of the chicken coop. The Szyfners, guided by altruistic and humanitarian considerations, looked after their charges devotedly without expecting anything in return, until August 1944, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, the Zuckerbrodts immigrated to England, Jankiel Heller returned to his city, Mielec, where he was killed in August 1945 by Polish nationalists. Dr. Maksymilian Gross remained in Poland. On November 6, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Katarzyna Szyfner and her son, Eugeniusz, as Righteous Among the Nations. File 7361