Josef Dinzinger and his wife Maria ran a remote farm near the Lower Bavarian village of Parnkofen in the Dingolfing district.
In April 1945, about ten days before the U.S. Army’s arrival, two men they did not know knocked at their door. Their emaciated bodies in prisoners’ clothing immediately told the surprised farmer they were escaped prisoners. Yerucham Apfel and Arthur Fisch had managed to escape a death march from Kaufering to Landshut at the last minute.
Despite having a Nazi officer living in the house, the farmer hid the two Jews in the farmyard and gave them food and blankets for the night, helped by his wife Maria. Even when the farm was occupied by the Wehrmacht as staff quarters, the Dinzingers did not send the Jewish men away.
Josef Dinzinger died in 1948. In 1957 Yerucham Apfel traveled from Israel to Parnkofen to lay a wreath with the words “In memory of the man who saved my life” on Josef Dinzinger’s grave. In 1966 Josef and Maria Dinzinger were honored by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.