Antczak Franciszek

Antczak Franciszek Szkop Zofia Szkop Kazimierz Domańska-Szkop Jadwiga In early November 1942, Mosze Kuperman and Józef Lewin fled from Wyszogród (Płock County, Warsaw District) to the home of their acquaintance, Franciszek Antczak, who was living in the village of Bogoszyn, and asked him to give them shelter. At first, he agreed to take them in, but after a short while he changed his mind because his wife, who was afraid of the danger involved, objected. Nonetheless, he did not throw them into the street; instead he arranged to have his sister, Zofia Szkop, take them into her home. At the time she was living in the village of Nacpolsk (Płock County). Zofia was a widow and the mother of eight children, the oldest of whom was 27-year-old Kazimierz, who ran the farm. The two of them agreed to hide the young Jewish men. They dug a camouflaged hideout for them in the barn, where they would spend more than a year. Zofia and her daughter, Jadwiga, then 16-years-old, cared for them and provided them with food that they bought by selling the belongings the men had brought with them. By day they would stay inside the hideout, only coming out at night to stretch their legs and to take in a breath of fresh air. Oftentimes, their rescuers would invite them into the house to spend time with them. One day in early March 1944, Mosze left the hideout to visit one of his acquaintances in the vicinity, and he was caught by the Germans. Following an interrogation by the Gestapo, German soldiers raided the Szkops’ home, found the hide-out in the barn, and arrested the adult members of the family who had given refuge to Jews, as well as taking Józef into custody. Kazimierz managed to run away during the raid, but a few weeks later he was caught too. The Gestapo interrogated all their prisoners and tried all those involved in hiding the two Jews. Franciszek was sent to a concentration camp from which he never returned. Zofia was sentenced to three months imprisonment; she survived and after the war returned home to her children. Kazimierz received a death sentence and three months later was executed in the prison. Mosze was shot to death while trying to escape, while Józef was more fortunate to flee from the Gestapo and survived. On October 22, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Franciszek Antczak, his sister, Zofia Szkop, and her children, Kazimierz Szkop and Jadwiga Szkop-Domanska, as Righteous Among the Nations File: 10081