February 14, 2019
On Valentine’s Day – a day that celebrates love and romance – we share a story of intense love that emerged from a period of immense darkness.
In 1939 Izak Prowizor (who later changed his name to George Prow in Australia), a Polish Jew, met Maria Sulikowska, a Polish Catholic woman who was a tenant of George’s family’s property.
From 1942, George was forced to spend 6 months hiding from the Nazis in a brick factory, from which he would occasionally return to Maria’s house in Otynia for meals.
When the bunker at the factory was discovered by the Gestapo, the group who was hiding there was deported to the Stanislowow ghetto, but George was able to escape. George hid in a wardrobe in Maria’s home until the Russians liberated Otynia.
In 1947, George married Maria, his rescuer.
On 9 May 1985, Yad Vashem honoured Maria Prow as Righteous Among the Nations.
Image: George and Maria Prow, c1992. Photographer Mark Tedeschi. SJM Collection.
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