The Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth set up their outpost in Stryj in 1913. Except for a few years' break (1927-1935) the Nazarene Sisters worked there until August 1945; in the interwar period they ran an elementary school and a grammar school {gymnasium) for girls. During the Second World War they did charitable work for the poorest people and got involved in rescuing the Jews. The Sisters also offered refuge to Polish refugees who fled from the terror of Ukrainian nationalists.Mother Superior Waleria Czarnowska kept a diary through the years of both Soviet and German occupation until she fell ill and died in January 1945. Her notes contain glimpses of everyday life in a small town in the Polish East in those harrowing times as well as a chronicle of the growing local engagement in various mutual help initiatives. The writer recorded events connected with her community, but was even more concerned with offering a broad view of life in Stryj under Soviet and then German occupation. In her notes she made a record of a wide range of problems, and did not shy away from describing even the most drastic ones. Her testimony is so valuable because, as an active member of the Main Welfare Council (Rada GłównaOpiekuńcza), she was in the very centre of the events she described. The Chronicle was continued by S. Aniceta Blarowska until the eviction of the Nazarene Sisters from Stryj on 17 August 1945. The last section deals mainly with various forms of pressure and intimidation targeted against the remaining Polish population. The aim of that campaign was to make the Poles leave their homes and move west to the so-called Regained Territories, ie. the land up to the River Oder that was handed over to Poland after the war. The Stryj Chronicle of the Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Family will remain an important source for the history of the war years 1939-1945 in Poland's former eastern provinces.