Commemorated on 28 October 2025 in Biedaczów near Leżajsk.

During the German occupation, Jakub Tokarz lived with his wife Maria (née Chrzan), and their six children in the village of Biedaczów, in the Jarosław County of the General Government’s Kraków District. The family ran a farm located near the forest.

In May 1942, Hersch Rimler arrived at the Tokarz farm seeking refuge with his wife Ita and their three daughters Ruchla, Hena, and Adela. Shortly thereafter, Ita and Adela left the household in search of shelter elsewhere. The remaining three hid in the farm outbuildings.

In the first days of June 1942, following a denunciation, two German gendarmes from Leżajsk arrived at the Tokarz property. One searched the house, the other the farm buildings. The Jews hiding in the barn were discovered. Hersch and his daughters were taken to Giedlarowa along with Jakub. The Jews were murdered there, and Jakub was taken to Leżajsk. Ita and Adela were caught by the Germans and murdered soon afterward. After several days in detention at the arrest facility housed in the building of the Magistrates’ Court, Jakub Tokarz was led out to the cemetery in Leżajsk on 11 June 1942 and shot by German gendarmes.

I testify to what I saw with my own eyes: I was walking to Leżajsk and saw German Gestapo at the cemetery next to the road; beside them stood Tokarz Jakub, and at that very moment he was shot. [1]

After a few days, a neighbor likely informed gendarmes passing through the village that my father was sheltering Jews. When the gendarmes arrived, they found the Rimler family during their search and took them and my father to the station in Giedlarowa. My mother went to Giedlarowa to look for him and she learned that the Jews had been shot in the forest in Giedlarowa, while my father had been executed on 11 June 1942 at the cemetery in Leżajsk. [2]

Jakub Tokarz was commemorated on 28 October 2025 in Biedaczów near Leżajsk. Click here to read the full story from the event.