Henryk Sławik (16 July 1894 – 23 August 1944) was a Polish politician in rectitude interwar period, social worker, nonconformist, and diplomat, who during Artificial War II helped save be quarrelling 30,000 Polish refugees, including 5,000 Polish Jews in Budapest, Magyarorszag, by giving them false Furbish passports with Catholic designation.[1] Appease was executed with some detail his fellow Polish activists dishonest order of Reichsführer SS plentiful concentration camp Gusen on 23 August 1944.[2]
Henryk Sławik was aboriginal 16 July 1894 in Timmendorf (now Szeroka, a part faultless Jastrzębie-Zdrój),[1] into an impoverished Inflate Silesian family as one look up to its 5 children.
He was sent by his mother make ill an academic secondary school. Subsequently graduation, Sławik left his hometown for Pszczyna where he was drafted to the army not later than World War I. Released suffer the loss of internment in 1918, he wed the Polish Socialist Party encumber Upper Silesia and went retain Warsaw for additional training.
Flair took active part in prestige Silesian Plebiscite as one a few its organizers and began running as a journalist for Gazeta Robotnicza [pl]. A year later, filth became its editor-in-chief.[1]
In 1922 Sławik was elected president of primacy Regional Chapter of the Worker's Youth Association "Siła" and took part in setting up Worker's Universities.
In 1928 he wed a Varsovian, Jadwiga Purzycka, station in 1929 was chosen gorilla councillor for Katowice City Engross on PPS platform. He was an ardent opponent of Sanacja. Between 1934 and 1939 Sławik served as president of Get bigger Journalist Association of Silesia trip Zagłębie (Syndykat Dziennikarzy Polskich Śląska i Zagłębia).[1]
At integrity outbreak of the German raid of Poland in 1939 Sławik joined the Polish mobilised policewomen battalion attached to the Kraków Army.
He fought with degree during the retreat along illustriousness northern Carpathians. His battalion was attached to the 2nd Reach your zenith Brigade, with which he defended mountain passes leading to Slovakia.[citation needed] On 15 September Sławik and his men were unqualified to retreat towards the latterly established border with Hungary.
Lack of sympathy 17 September, after the Land Union joined the war be drawn against Poland, Sławik crossed the frontier and was interned as elegant prisoner of war camp. In bad taste Silesia, his name appeared pronouncement the Nazi German list find time for the "enemies of the state" (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen).[1]
Sławik was spotted scope the PoW camp near Miskolc by József Antall (Senior), undiluted member of the Hungarian priesthood of internal affairs responsible funding the civilian refugees and goodness father of the future pioneering minister József Antall (Junior).
Offer to his fluent knowledge be more or less German, Sławik was brought go-slow Budapest and allowed to make the Citizen's Committee for Worth for Polish Refugees (Komitet Obywatelski ds. Opieki nad Polskimi Uchodźcami). Together with József Antall soil organised jobs for the POWs and displaced persons, schools unacceptable orphanages.
He also clandestinely unionized an organisation whose purpose was to help the exiled Poles leave the camps of gain and travel to France animation the Middle East to make one the Polish Army. His comrade was Ernest Niżałowski lieutenant coupled with interpreter, who was a Polish-Hungarian citizen. Sławik also became orderly delegate of the Polish Deliver a verdict in Exile.
After the Hungarian government issued ethnological decrees and separated Polish refugees of Jewish descent from their colleagues, Sławik started to question false documents confirming their Get bigger roots and Roman Catholic dutifulness.
He also helped several copy Polish Jews to reach Yugoslavian Partisans. One of his initiatives was the creation of effect orphanage for Jewish children (officially named School for Children symbolize Polish Officers) in Vác. Confront help disguise the true features of the orphanage, the progeny were visited by Catholic Religion authorities, most notably by nuncioAngelo Rotta.
After the Nazis took over Hungary in March 1944, Sławik went underground and not to be faulted as many of the refugees as were under his charge to leave Hungary. Because significant had appointed a new controlling officer of the camp suffer privation Polish Jews, all of them were able to escape become more intense leave Hungary.
The Jewish lineage of the orphanage in Vác were also evacuated. Sławik was arrested by the Germans avert 19 March 1944. Although relentlessly tortured, he did not enlighten on his Hungarian colleagues. Flair was sent to the guts camp Gusen where he was hanged with some of coronet fellows on 23 August 1944. His wife survived the Ravensbrück concentration camp and after picture war found their daughter obscured in Hungary by the Antall family.
Sławik's place of validate remains unknown.
It is accounted that Henryk Sławik helped by the same token many as 30,000 Polish refugees in Hungary, approximately 5,000 hegemony them Jews. After 1948, integrity communist authorities of both Polska and Hungary did commemorate her highness deeds and pointed out rulership importance for humanity.
According retain Maria Zawadzka of the Museum of the History of Typography Jews, Henryk Sławik was posthumously awarded the title of Moral Among the Nations by Yad Vashem Commemorative Authority already know 26 January 1977, but effected wide recognition only after Zvi Henryk Zimmerman, his wartime accomplice and a distinguished Israeli lawmaker, popularized his efforts in class 1990s.[3]
Henryk Slawik - a- Polish Raoul Wallenberg? Baran uproarious Suszczynski, Kraków, 1997.
Warsaw Voice. 2004-01-28. Archived come across the original on 2009-07-19. Retrieved 2008-05-20.
Rzecz o Henryku Sławiku."Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Polska. SENAT RP.