Jan and Maria Grzebyk lived with their children, Stefania and Stanisław in Monasterzyska, a town in the province of Tarnopol.
"In 1942, while visiting Tarnów, Stefania met a Jewish woman, Salomea Szpanglat and her husband Naftal, as well as Henryk Keller and his family. They all lived in the Tarnów Ghetto” – we read in the Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations.
In order to enter the ghetto more easily, Stefania sewed on a yellow star and pretended to be Jewish. She led both families out of the ghetto. She found refuge for the Szpanglats in Lubeń near Krosno, and she placed the Kellers in a farm in Boguchwala near Rzeszów. At this time, Stefania also got to know in the ghetto an acquaintance of the above-mentioned families - Debora Weg
In her testimony for the Jewish History Institute, Stefania wrote: "I went to the ghetto many times, to take away the possessions of families, to sell them and thus make it possible for them to survive on the ››Aryan‹‹ side of the wall. I promised Maria Grzebyk (Debora Weg) that if she could get out of the ghetto, she could come to me for help at Monasterzyska …”.
And indeed, in November 1942 she did so. The young Jewish woman lived with the Grzebyks for three months – from November 1942 to February 1943. She had neither documents nor money. For this reason Stefania's brother Stanisław decided to apply together with Debora to join a compulsory workforce going to the Third Reich. He organized suitable documents for her so that she could pretend to be his wife.
In 1944, in Heinichen near Dresden in Germany, a daughter – Anna, was born to them. On August 5 1945, they returned to Poland and married for real.
The rescued families, the Szpanglats and Kellers, emigrated to Israel after the war. They did not keep in touch with the Grzebyks.
