Before the 1939 invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Stefania Podgórska (Born June 2, 1921 in Lipa - Died September 29, 2018 in Los Angeles) worked in a grocery store owned by the Diamants, a Jewish family. Her father had died in 1938 after an illness. Soon after the arrival of the Nazis, her mother and brother were taken to Salzburg for forced labor, while the Diamants were forced into a ghetto. The two Podgórski sisters lived in Przemyśl alone in an apartment rented by Stefania, who was 17 at the time. She got a job in town as a machine-tool operator.