AEG electric motor put on workbench to conceal hiding place of Jewish family

Stefan Petri (1899-1986) was born in Poland which was part of the Russian Empire until the 1917 revolution. Stefan was an engineer. He lived in Wawer, now a Warsaw suburb, with his wife Janina nee Niewiarowska, born in 1898. Stefan was Greek Orthodox and his wife was Roman Catholic. They had a son Marian in 1929. They may have had another son and some of Janina's family also lived with them. On September 1, Nazi Germany invaded Poland with overwhelming force. Much of the country was under aerial bombardment for weeks. The Polish Army collapsed and the government fled. On September 17, the Soviet Army invaded from the east, and the two occupiers partitioned the country as agreed upon in the August 1939 German Soviet Pact. Warsaw was controlled by German forces by the end of the month. Stefan, uncertain of what might occur, built a hiding place in the cellar of his home. It was accessed through a cabinet in the laundry room. The German occupation regime was determined to brutally subjugate the Polish people who German propaganda denounced as filthy, bestial, and subhuman.

In the fall of 1942, Stefan decided to hide a Jewish family, Dr. Kaufman Szapiro, a dentist, his wife Ela, who was Swedish, and their sons Marek, born February 7, 1917, in Warsaw, and Jerzy, born February 7, 1920, medical students. The Szapiros had fled the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jewish population was segregated in fall 1940. From July 22 - September 12, 1942, the Germans carried out mass deportations to Treblinka killing center, murdering around 300,000 Jews. The family escaped with the help of a Polish friend, Irena Wroblewska and her brother. Irena took them to hide in a tollgate in Praga, a suburb of Warsaw. Stefan came late one night and took them along side streets to his home at 16 Halicki Street, now Barborka St. Stefan had known the Szapiros before the war and felt he was obligated to provide assistance. He first hid them in the basement space concealed by the cabinet. There were severe penalties, including death, for anyone caught hiding Jews. Neighbors of the Petri family became suspicious of the activity in the family’s home. Someone told the Gestapo that they were hiding escaped Jews. Stefan was interrogated and beaten. The home was closely searched twice with dogs, but nothing was discovered. Stefan had nicotine powder that he spread on the cellar floor to confuse the dog's ability to smell. Other people besides the family knew about the hiding place he had built during the invasion, which made its discovery likely. So in 1943, Stefan built a second hiding place. He dug out out a space below the first cellar hiding space in his basement. This dugout was accessed through a trap door made from movable boards underneath a large workbench where they stored locksmith's tools and other instruments. The Szapiro's could stay in the apartment at night and had to hide in the cellar during the day. A few neighbors, such as a local shopkeeper Jadwiga, helped provide food for the family. For two years, the Szapiros stayed hidden day and night in Stefan’s home.

In early September 1944, the region was liberated by the Soviet Army. World War II ended with the surrender of Germany on May 7, 1945. Jerzy Szapiro became a professor of medicine in Warsaw. Jerzy remembered how Stefan took on this dangerous task as if it were a straightforward matter and displayed, in the face of threats and actual danger, steadfast courage and moral stength. Marek Szapiro immigrated to the United States. In 1981, Stefan, his wife Janina, and their son Marian were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Stefan, 87, passed away in 1986/87. Marek, 85, passed away in 2002. His memoirs were published in 2007, including diaries from the war years and details of chess games played between himself and Jerzy.