Szumlańska Helena ; Daughter: Czesława ; Daughter: Stefanczyk Waleria (Szumlańska)

Szumlańska, Helena Stefańczyk-Szumlańska, Waleria Szumlańska, Czesława At the beginning of 1942, the Jews of Czernelica, in the Stanisławów district in Eastern Galicia, were expelled from their homes. The women, the elderly, the children and the sick were massacred at nearby Horodenka, while the young men, including Shimon Tauber, were taken to a labor camp. Tauber, who managed to escape from the train, returned by back roads to the town of his birth, where he knocked on the door of Ignacy Ustjanowski*, a longtime acquaintance, who helped Jews by hiding them in the basement of the local church. In Ustjanowski’s home, Tauber met Mordechaj Szykler, a young man of his own age. The two were sheltered in Ustjanowski’s home, but when the locals began to suspect he was hiding Jews in his home, Ustjanowski’s neighbor Helena Szumlańska came to his aid, took in the two Jewish refugees and cared for them temporarily. Szumlańska was helped by her two daughters, Waleria and Czesława, who cooked and cleaned for the refugees, and brought them medicine, while keeping their hiding place a secret. Although they were poor, Szumlańska and her daughters neither requested nor received any payment for rescuing the refugees, and were motivated by their religious faith and their hatred of the Nazis. The two Jewish refugees remained in Szumlańska’s home only a few days, but even after they returned to Ustjanowski’s home, Szumlańska would occasionally take them to her home, so that her neighbor Ustjanowski could invite guests, neighbors or relatives to his home without arousing their suspicions. Szykler and Tauber were liberated in the summer of 1944 by the Red Army, and after the war immigrated to Israel. Szumlańska and her daughters moved to an area within Poland’s new borders. In later days, Tauber said: “There is no way of knowing if we remained alive thanks to the few days when we hid in the home of the Szumlański family, or thanks to the many months when we hid inUstjanowski’s home.” On April 14, 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Helena Szumlańska, and her daughters Waleria Stefańczyk neé Szumlańska and Czesława Szumlańska as Righteous Among the Nations. File 3177