Andrzej Garbuliński was a Polish farmer who lived in the village of Czerna

Czerna, Lesser Poland Voivodeship

Czerna is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Krzeszowice, within Kraków County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. It lies approximately north of Krzeszowice and north-west of the regional capital Kraków....

 with his family: Władysław, Eleonora,Marian,Helena, Kunegunda,Stanisław, Kazimierz, Jan and two wives Zofia and Kazimiera during the Nazi German occupation of Poland in World War II

Invasion of Poland (1939)

The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...

. He was executed by the Nazis with his oldest son Władysław, in late 1943, for aiding and sheltering Jews.

In 1940, a neighboring Jewish family of Alfenbeins from the same village of Czerna—who escaped from the Płaszów concentration camp—asked the Garbulińskis for help and shelter. Among them, Sarah Alfenbein, her daughter Hanna and son Meir. Just before they arrived at the farm, they hid at the nearby home of Stanisław Owce. The Garbulinskis took the Jews in, and cared of them for the next two years.

In late 1943, the Gestapo

Gestapo

The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

 gendarmerie came to the village. As they headed for the farm, Andrzej Garbuliński asked the hiding Jews to run. However, they were spotted at a field while escaping. The mother and son were killed on the spot. The daughter Hanna managed to keep running and had the Germans chase after her for a while. At the end, she was also murdered. Andrzej Garbuliński and his son Władysław were immediately arrested and taken to the Jasło prison. The father was sentenced to death and executed there. Władysław was transferred to a separate prison where he was also killed. The only family members who survived the war were Eleonora, Helena, Kunegunda, Marian, Stanislaw, Kazimierz and Jan .

In 1997 the Garbuliński family was recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....

 by Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....

 in Jerusalem for their daring attempt at saving a Jewish family from the Holocaust

Holocaust in Poland

The Holocaust, also known as haShoah , was a genocide officially sanctioned and executed by the Third Reich during World War II. It took the lives of three million Polish Jews, destroying an entire civilization. Only a small percentage survived or managed to escape beyond the reach of the Nazis...

; Andrzej and Władysław, for giving their lives in the process.