Stefania Podgorska

Born: Unknown 1925, Lipa, Poland

Stefania Podgorska grew up on a farm with her large Catholic family. When she was 13, her father got sick and died. Stefania asked her mother if she could leave the farm and join her sister in the city of Przemysl. Stefania worked in a grocery store there that was owned by the Diamants, a Jewish family. They treated Stefania like family. When the Germans invaded Poland, she moved in with them.

In 1941, the Diamants were made to leave their homes and live in a Jewish ghetto. Stefania's mother was sent to Germany where she was forced to work. Stefania took care of her 6-year- old sister and found an apartment outside the ghetto. She traded clothes for food. A year later, she heard the news that all the Jewish people in the ghetto were going to be rounded up and sent away. She helped some of them escape and hide. Then she moved into a cottage so she could have more space. Eventually, 13 Jewish people were living in a secret space in Stefania's attic. All of them survived the war. In 1961, Stefania moved to the United States with her husband, Josef Diamant.