Irena Szumska-Ingram protected and then married Bernard Hellreich during the WWII genocide, smuggling him away from the German forces to hide in a small village only 40 kilometres from the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The Russian-born woman, who died in 2003, will posthumously receive the Righteous Among The Nations award from Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum at a ceremony in Sydney on Wednesday.

Irena first met the young Bernard while he was working at a hospital in his native Poland.

He would describe the popular girl as "hopelessly beautiful" and, later, "my infallible, uncompromising, determined war leader".

Sent to work as a doctor in the Hluboczek concentration camp, under German occupation, Bernard realised he had to flee Nazi rule.

His young female companion drew upon a network of friends and family to hide the Jewish doctor.

Initially staying in a small apartment she shared with her mother and sister, he was quickly smuggled to Czermna, a town where he was able to hide and work as a medical student by adopting the identity of one of Irena's former boyfriends.

The pair married after the war and moved to Australia as Dr and Mrs Ingram, settling in New Lambton Heights where they lived for 50 years.

In his book Unfinished Symphony, Dr Ingram paid tribute to his wife's heroism.

"Without her, I would have been destroyed, crushed, forgotten - another abstract, anonymous addition to the list of millions of victims of the Holocaust," he wrote.

"She gave me life."

Daughter Vivienne Ingram said her father had nominated his wife for the prestigious Yad Vashem award four years after her death, and just five days before his own.

"He never ceased to be grateful for every day of life her heroism and that of Marian [Golebiowski, a friend of Irena's and an earlier recipient of the Righteous Among The Nations award] gave him," she said.

"It [the nomination] was literally the last thing he ever signed."

Ms Ingram will receive the award alongside her brother Christopher at a ceremony in Sydney on Wednesday.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the award represented the need to speak out against injustice.