The Town Hall Clock – Market Square, Stefan Mazur

At the beginning of August 1942, a few days before the final liquidation of the Nowy Sącz ghetto, Berta Korennman and her friend, Hela Szancer, fled using “Aryan” documents. Their escape was organized by Stefan Mazur, a Polish friend of Korennman who agreed to help them out of the goodness of his heart and asking for no payment. Mazur helped Szancer reach Przemyśl, where she worked under an assumed name for several months. She was then taken to a labor camp in Germany, where she survived the war. Berta Korennman found shelter in a hiding place prepared by Mazur on the clock tower of the town hall. When it turned out that the place would not be safe, he decided to move her to his relatives living in Lviv. When Mazur and Korennman arrived to Lviv by train, they were arrested in a round-up of civilians at the railway station and sent to a labor camp in Germany, where they posed as a married couple. They worked at a German military factory until the liberation in May 1945. After their return to Poland, they got married and settled in Lublin. After the war, Hela Szancer emigrated to Israel.

On August 11, 1992, the Yad Vashem Institute honored Stefan Mazur as the Righteous among the Nations.

Pharmacy at the corner at Lwowska 27 Str., Albin Burz

A pharmacist, he leased the “Pod Opatrznością” (Providence) pharmacy on Lwowska Street. During the war, he would buy flour, have bread baked from it and pass the food to the partisans and Jewish people in the ghetto. He also supported them financially. From the front, the Germans would pick up medicine and from the back, the partisans would receive food, medicine, money, clothing and soap, which also was made in the pharmacy. When the Germans would come to the nearby ghetto to set the clothing of the Jewish people living there on fire, the pharmacy employees would treat the burns, clean the wounds and distribute ointments. Jewish people were also given medicine, bandages and food to save for later. Burz also helped, among others, an EMT doctor, Mieczysław Koerbel with his sister and an ophthalmologist, doctor Jakub Mendler, escape from the ghetto. Furthermore, the pharmacy employees found bicycles for the doctors, to help them escape further. Medicine and wound dressings from the pharmacy “Pod Opatrznością” pharmacy were delivered to the conspired contact points by Barbara Schauer and Albin Burz’s wife, Zofia. They were denounced and arrested, but thanks to Burz’s efforts they were able to regain freedom. He actively participated in the work of the Central welfare Council in Nowy Sącz which aided the repatriated and imprisoned. Thanks to the support of Burz, in 1941, a Jewish pharmacy was created in the Nowy Sącz ghetto, which was later supplied by the “Pod Opatrznością” pharmacy.

House at Tatrzańska 6 Str., Jadwiga Wolska

During the war, Jadwiga Wolska lived in Nowy Sącz and worked in the local office of the Central Welfare Council. She helped Teresa Huppert and her son Jerzy (Uri) survive the occupation. In 1942, when the Jewish people were isolated in the ghetto, she obtained a pass for one visit per day – Jadwiga was bold enough to use it to enter the ghetto several times a day. She persudad the Germans, that she brings the Jewish people old food and expired medicine. At her initiative, a Boy’s House was opened, in a former Jewish hospital at Kraszewski 37 Str. in spring 1943. The feeding and clothing of homeless children during the inferno of the war was almost a miracle. Jadwiga Wolska saved the lives of hundreds of Polish and Jewish people, and one of her wards was Jerzy Huppert.

On 4 July 1991, the Yad Vashem Institute honored Jadwiga Wolska as a Righteous among the Nations.

House on Podhalańska Street – Sokołowski Family Home, Anna Zaręba-Sokołowska née Hadziacka

When the war and occupation of Poland began, Anna Sokołowska, a teacher with years of service, was dismissed from work. Soon she started working for the Polish underground movement in Nowy Sącz. Her work to help the Jewish people intensified in 1942, during the liquidation of the ghetto. When Jewish people started fleeing to the “Aryan” side, Sokolowska allowed some of them to use her apartment as a transfer point and temporary hideout until they were able to obtain “Aryan” papers or were smuggled through the Hungarian border. Sokołowska, who worked with Żegota from the beginning, coordinated the aid for the Jewish people – caring for the sick and wounded and finding hiding places for Jewish children. Among the people hiding in her apartment there were two young Jewish women who were later discovered, arrested and executed by the Gestapo. Sokołowska was also arrested, but she managed to convince the interrogators that she did not know these women were Jewish and she was released from prison. In 1943 Sokołowska was arrested again and after an interrogation was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she got sick. According to one testimony, she was murdered with a intracardiac injection of phenol, according to another – in the gas chamber, in February 1945.

Zielona Str., Eugeniusz Stępniowski

During the war Eugeniusz Stępniowski worked at the Nowy Sącz post office. On March 1, 1942, he was arrested for helping people of Jewish descent. He was tortured by the head of Nowy Sącz Gestapo Heinrich Hamann. He was then sent to prison in Tarnów, where he died from his wounds and exhaustion.

Currently Browarna Str., Michał Łomnicki

During the occupation, Michal Łomnicki from Piwniczna aided the Jewish people isolated in the Nowy Sącz ghetto, supplying them with food, and helping them escape to the “Aryan” side. At the beginning of 1943 Łomnicki started smuggling Jewish refugees from occupied Poland to Slovakia. Among them was Hersz Cymerman, who fled a labor camp in August 1943 and was hiding for several days in the Carpathian forests. The villagers contacted Cymerman with Łomnicki, who agreed to guide him through the green border with a group of other Jewish refugees. Prior to the operation, Łomnicki was harbouring the group in his home and in the forest, providing them with food and ensuring their safety, until it was possible to guide them through the Poprad River to Slovakia. He worked together with Stefan Kocun, who led the Jewish refugees to a representative of the Jewish Community in Prešov, from where they were taken to Hungary. By putting his life at risk to save the Jewish people, Łomnicki was motivated by the need to fight against a common enemy and never expected anything in return. One day, Łomnicki was arrested by Gestapo for his underground activities, but he was released after a brutal interrogation. Despite the danger, he continued his underground work. After the war, Cymerman emigrated to Israel.

On 8 October 1992, the Yad Vashem Institute honored Michał Łomnicki as a Righteous among the Nations.

Saint Margaret Basilica, Władysław Deszcz

He was a Roman Catholic priest, born in the USA. On 21 August 1941, he was arrested in Nowy Sącz for aiding people of Jewish descent. He was murdered with 25 other people in Biegonice.

Parish of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Zygmuntowska 48 Str., Józef Bury

Fr. Józef Bury was involved in assistance provided to the Jewish peopleby the Common Welfare Council. One of the things he helped with was preparing documents for people fleeing to Hungary. He was denounced by German colonists. Gestapo officers searched the whole house for a broadcasting radio station. Father Bury had a radio receiver, but the Germans didn’t find anything. And so, he avoided certain death that was a punishment for owning a radio. In 1942, the typhus epidemic broke out in Nowy Sącz, claiming many victims. Fr. Vicar Józef Bury also succumbed to the disease. He died on 20 September 1942.

Parish of the Holy Spirit, Piotra Skargi 10 Str., fr. Jan Karuga

Taking advantage of the fact that he had naturally semitic facial features, Father Karuga would put the band with the star of David on his arm, like the Jewish people were forced to wear and he would sneak into the ghetto. The Jesuit seminarians joined his efforts. On the night from 25th to 26th August 1942, Fr. Karuga led two Jewish women out of the ghetto through a wall along the Dunajec River. Unfortunately, during an attempt to get them out of the city, they were detected by a Polish informer. Fr. Karuga and the Jewish women managed to escape, but seminarian Edward Czermiński was captured. He withstood the interrogation and did not give up any names. After a month, thanks to the activity of the special cells of the Home Army, Czermiński was out of prison again. Fr. Karuga met worse fate. Fleeing in panic he was not able to find the guide waiting for them, seminarian Czesław Białek. He wandered around the forest with the Jewish women, until one of them, who coulds not bear the tension, committed suicide. The shock he experienced later triggered a mental illness and Fr. Karuga had to be committed to a closed psychiatric ward, where he died years later.

Chruślice – House of the Drewniak Family

During the occupation, Batja Lerer and her family were forced to move to the closed Nowy Sącz, where Zofia and Wojciech Drewnak also lived with their son, Stanisław. The Drewnak family would regularly deliver food to the Lerer family. Shortly before the ghetto was liquidated, Stanislaw, who worked as a clerk in the German labor office, saw that Batja and her brother Cham were on the list of workers whose deportations were postponed. He transfer Mosze-Jehoszua, the second brother of Batja, to a labor camp in the nearby city Muszyna, thus saving his life. Shortly before the deportation of a group of laborers, Batja and her friend, Runa Fakler, fled the ghetto and asked the Drewniak family for help. Drewnaks hid them in Kraków, all the time keeping in touch with them. Later on, when the women could no longer remain in their hideout, Runa left and Batja was urged by Stanislaw to join the Polish underground movement active in the area. Stanisław being arrested by the Gestapo and taken to KL Auschwitz thwarted their plans. Both Batja and Moshe-Jehoszua survived the war and emigrated to Israel.

On 30 August 1988 the Yad Vashem Institute honored Zofia and Tadeusz Drewniak and their son Stanisław Drewniak as the Righteous among the Nations.

Westerplatte and Batalionów Chłopskich Strs, Aniela Prusakowa-Patkowska

Aniela Prusakowa-Patkowska met the Grossbard family in 1941, when she began working in a military reconvalescence home in Jaremcze (Stanislawów poviat, district of Galicia). After the Germans seized these area, in the same year, she came to the assistance of her Jewish friends, who were persecuted by both the Germans and the Ukrainian nationalists. He started with smuggling food from nearby Delatyń and delivering it, risking her own life, to the Jewish people of Jaremcze. When the Germans began the extermination of the Jewish population, Grossbards left their 12-year-old daughter Szulamit with a Ukrainian neighbor and sent word to Prusakowa-Patkowska. Risking her life, she took Szulamit to her relatives in Nowy Sącz. In August 1942, when the Nowy Sącz ghetto was being liquidated and Szulamit’s life was threatened, Aniela Hebda, a former servant of the family, helped save her. Hebda worked for a German family and, despite the danger, she hid Szulamit in the attick of her employers’ home, providing her with everything she needed. The girl stayed there until the liberation in January 1945. Prusakowa-Patkowska was an active supporter of the Home Army and she considered helping and rescuing Jewish people a part of the fight against the common enemy. After the war, Prusakowa-Patkowska learned where Szulammit was and passed to her a ring, which she received from her mother. Aniela Hebda was motivated by altruism and loyalty toward her former employers. Despite the danger, neither of the women demanded anything in return for their assistance.

On 22 May 1994, the Yad Vashem Institute honored Aniela Hebda and Aniela Prusakowa-Patkowska as the Righteous among the Nations.

Currently Beskidzka Str., Aniela Hebda

Aniela Hebda was a relative of Aniela Prusakowa-Patkowska, who came to the assistance of her Jewish friends, the Grossbard family, who were persecuted both by the Germans and by Ukrainian nationalists. It happened in Jaremcze near Stanisławów. First, she started smuggling food, and when the Germans began the extermination of the Jewish population of the city, she took care of their 12-year-old daughter. The ended up with Aniela Hebda, who lived in Nowy Sącz. Although she worked as a servant for a German family, she, despite the danger, hid the girl in the attic of her employers’ home, providing her with everything she needed. The girl stayed there until the liberation in January 1945.

On 22 May 1994, the Yad Vashem Institute honored Aniela Hebda and Aniela Prusakowa-Patkowska as the Righteous among the Nations.