Sochacki Eugeniusz & Sochacka Janina ; Son: Jósef ; Daughter: Sochacka Romualda

Sochacki, Eugeniusz Sochacka, Janina Sochacka, Romualda Sochacki, Jozef During the occupation, Romualda Sochacka was a permanent employee at the local military canteen where Jadwiga Haupt who lived in the Przemysł ghetto, also worked. As a Jewish forced laborer, Haupt was escorted between the ghetto and her workplace and back each morning and evening. In due course, Sochacka and Haupt became friends, and in the summer of 1942, when the Germans began sending the ghetto inhabitants to the Bełżec death camp, Haupt turned to Sochacka for help. Sochacka’s parents agreed to take in not only Haupt but also her father, Mieczysław, and a relative of hers, Alicija Halpern, and her daughter, Halina. Eugeniusz Sochacki and his son, Józef, planned the refugees’ escape from the ghetto down to the last detail. In the middle of a cold, rainy night, at enormous personal risk, they helped the four Jews escape to the Aryan side of the city. The Sochackis hid them in their apartment in a hiding place they had prepared in advance, where they looked after them devotedly and saw to all their needs until July 1944, when the area was liberated. Eugeniusz Sochacki and his family saw saving the Jews, who were being persecuted by a common enemy, as a patriotic duty that could not be shirked, whatever the cost. On May 16, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Janina and Eugeniusz Sochacki, their daughter, Romualda, and son, Józef, as Righteous Among the Nations. File 5732