The Dorota family lived in the village of Młodowa near Lubaczów (Rawa Ruska County). Antoni Dorota had once been the village leader [sołtys]. He was a widower. Following the death of his wife, he lived on with several of their children.
Helena and Wolf Remer, a Jewish couple, lived in Lubaczów. In 1936, they had a son Józef (Joseph).
During the German occupation, the Remer family were required to move to the ghetto, which had been created in Lubaczów in October 1942. Prior to moving, they left their belongings with their neighbours, who were their friends and who promised to hide them if need be. In the ghetto, Wolf worked at an armaments plant.
Near the end of 1942, the Remer family learned that the ghetto was soon to be liquidated. They cut the wire fence of the ghetto, made their way through and fled. The Lubaczów ghetto was indeed liquidated just after the beginning of January 1943 and its inhabitants were shot on the spot or were transported to the death camp in Bełżec.
Initially, the Remer family hid in the attic of a German-occupied building. For a week, they lived on what little food they had brought with them from the ghetto and drank melted snow. Hunger and fear of discovery soon drove them out of their hiding place.
They sneaked out at night and went to the friends with whom they had left their belongings. They were hidden in a barn. Six weeks later, it turned out that two Jewish girls, whom the Remers met along their way, were caught. They were tortured and confessed that there was a Jewish family in hiding in the area.
It was then that the Remers ended up in the house of Antoni Dorota, who agreed to hide them for a short time in exchange for what remained of their belongings. He prepared an underground hiding place. It was a small room and it was only possible to sit inside it. Air could only get inside via clay pipes and the floor was covered with a layer of straw. No daylight ever made its way to the hiding place. The Remer family hid in such conditions for twenty-two months.
The family of Antoni Dorota was a poor one and he could barely afford to run his household. For the most part, the Remers had to rely on the help of his daughter Aniela. She would bring them whatever food she could, sometimes even pig feed. “Had it not been for her, we would not have lived through that protracted nightmare”, Joseph Remer wrote in his statement.
After the arrival of Soviet troops in June 1944, the Remer family transferred ownership of their house to the family of Antoni Dorota. The Remer couple had a daughter, Miriam, in a camp for displaced persons. In 1948, they moved to Montreal, where Wolf died.
In 1962, Joseph Remer married Sara Benjamin. He ran a printing house. He lived to see three children and nine grandchildren.
In 1992, the Yad Vashem Institute honoured Antoni Dorota and his daughter Aniela Mirkowska with the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".
