Henryk Sławik

Henryk Sławik
Henryk Sławik
Born	1894 Jastrzębie-Zdrój, Poland
Died	1944 Mauthausen concentration camp, Austria
Cause of death	Shot to death
Nationality	Polish
Occupation	Politician
Known for	Holocaust rescue

Henryk Sławik, born 16 July 1894 in Szeroka (now a part of Jastrzębie-Zdrój, then in the Prussian zone of partitioned Poland), was executed by Nazi Germans in Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp on 26 August 1944. Sławik was a Polish politician in the interwar period, social worker, activist, and diplomat, who during World War II helped save over 5,000 Polish as well as Hungarian Jews in Budapest by giving them false Polish passports with Catholic designation.

Life

Henryk Sławik was born into an impoverished Polish Silesian family as one of its 9 children. He was sent by his mother to an academic secondary school. After graduation, Sławik left his hometown for Pszczyna where he was drafted to the army during World War I. Released from internment in 1918, he joined the Polish Socialist Party in Upper Silesia and went to Warsaw for additional training. He took active part in the Silesian Plebiscite as one of its organizers and began working as a journalist for Gazeta Robotnicza. A year later, he became its Editor-in-chief.

In 1922 Sławik was elected president of the Regional Chapter of the Worker's Youth Association "Siła" and took part in setting up Worker's Universities. In 1928 he married a Varsovian, Jadwiga Purzycka, and in 1929 was chosen as councillor for Katowice City Hall on PPS platform. He was an ardent opponent of Sanacja. Between 1934 and 1939 Sławik served as president of Polish Journalist Association for Upper and Lower Silesia (Syndykat Dziennikarzy Polskich Śląska i Zagłębia).

World War II

At the outbreak of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 Sławik joined the Polish mobilised police battalion attached to the Kraków Army. He fought with distinction during the retreat along the northern Carpathians. His battalion was attached to the 2nd Mountain Brigade, with which he defended mountain passes leading to Slovakia.^{[citation needed]} On September 15 Sławik and his men were ordered to retreat towards the newly established border with Hungary. On September 17, after the Soviet Union joined the war against Poland, Sławik crossed the border and was interned as a prisoner of war camp. In Silesia, his name appeared on the Nazi German list of the "enemies of the state" (Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen).

Sławik was spotted in the PoW camp near Miszkolce by József Antall (Senior), a member of the Hungarian ministry of internal affairs responsible for the civilian refugees and the father of the future prime minister József Antall (Junior). Thanks to his fluent knowledge of German, Sławik was brought to Budapest and allowed to create the Citizen's Committee for Help for Polish Refugees (Komitet Obywatelski ds. Opieki nad Polskimi Uchodźcami). Together with József Antall he organised jobs for the POWs and displaced persons, schools and orphanages. He also clandestinely organised an organisation whose purpose was to help the exiled Poles leave the camps of internment and travel to France or the Middle East to join the Polish Army. Sławik also became a delegate of the Polish Government in Exile.

The Polish Wallenberg

After the Hungarian government issued racial decrees and separated Polish refugees of Jewish descent from their colleagues, Sławik started to issue false documents confirming their Polish roots and Roman Catholic faith. He also helped several hundred Polish Jews to reach Yugoslav partisans. One of his initiatives was the creation of an orphanage for Jewish children (officially named School for Children of Polish Officers) in Vác. To help disguise the true nature of the orphanage, the children were visited by Catholic Church authorities, most notably by nuncio Angelo Rotta.

After the Nazis took over Hungary in March 1944, Sławik went underground and ordered as many of the refugees as were under his command to leave Hungary. Because he had appointed a new commanding officer of the camp for Polish Jews, all of them were able to escape and leave Hungary. The Jewish children of the orphanage in Vác were also evacuated. Sławik was arrested by the Germans on March 19, 1944. Although brutally tortured, he did not inform on his Hungarian colleagues. He was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp where he was shot to death, probably in August 1944. His wife survived the Ravensbrück concentration camp and after the war found their daughter hidden in Hungary by the Antall family. Sławik's place of burial remains unknown.

It is estimated that Henryk Sławik helped as many as 30,000 Polish refugees in Hungary, approximately 5,000 of them Jews. After 1948, the communist authorities of both Poland and Hungary did commemorate his deeds and pointed out his importance for humanity. According to Maria Zawadzka of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Henryk Sławik was posthumously awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem Commemorative Authority already on 26 January 1977, but achieved wide recognition only after Zvi Henryk Zimmerman, his wartime associate and a distinguished Israeli politician, popularized his efforts in the 1990s.

See also

• Raoul Wallenberg, diplomat
• International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation (IRWF; Buenos Aires, New York, Berlin, Rio de Janeiro, Jerusalem)

Notes and references

• Henryk Zvi Zimmerman, Dr. Henryk Slawik - a Polish Raoul Wallenberg? Baran i Suszczynski, Kraków, 1997.
• Grzegorz Łubczyk, Henryk Slawik - the Polish Wallenberg. Trybuna 120 (3717), May 24 2002
• Nathan Davolt, Henryk Slawik - The Man Who Saved Thousands
• "Unsung Hero". Warsaw Voice. 2004-01-28. http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/4635/. Retrieved 2008-05-20. 
• Article about Henryk Sławik. Onet.pl. 29 August 2008. (Polish)
• Waldemar Szymański, "Henryk Sławik – zapomniany bohater." Tydzień Żuławski, May 2004.
• Premiera filmu "Henryk Sławik – Polski Wallenberg." Archiwum działalności Prezydenta RP w latach 1997-2005. BIP.
• Michał Jaranowski, Grzegorz Łubczyk, "Polski Wallenberg. Rzecz o Henryku Sławiku." Stowarzyszenie Wspólnota Polska. SENAT RP.