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Decorated for Disinterested Goodness: They Saved Auschwitz Prisoners
Polish President Bronisław Komorowski decorated Oświęcim area residents who aided inmates of the German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz during the war. Seventeen of the thirty-two honorees attended the ceremony held at Belweder Palace in Warsaw on February 1 in connection with the sixty-sixth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
"I am aware of how difficult it was to act in this way, in a situation of extreme danger to your own families and yourselves, and that it was not easy to act in a accordance with the greatest dignity while bearing in mind the greater tragedy and the greater fear felt by other people. I would like to thank you for the fact that, in a situation of extreme danger, you were able to display the noblest aspect of the human spirit," said Komorowski. "We can say with pride that a significant number of those who aided persons of Jewish origins were Poles. Therefore all of us, as a community, are in your debt."
To date, Auschwitz Museum historians have established the names of more than 1,200 Poles from Oświęcim and the surrounding area who risked their own lives and the lives of their families to help prisoners. Their biographies have been collected by Dr. Henryk Świebocki in the book People of Good Will, available in Polish and English.
Today's decorations were not the first awarded by the President of the Polish Republic to persons who helped Auschwitz prisoners. In March 2007, orders were bestowed on nineteen People of Good Will nominated by the Museum. This year's awards were based on the same nomination, which was the initiative of the Museum and of former prisoner August Kowalczyk, who obtained aid from Oświęcim area residents during his escape from the camp.
"Two young Silesian girls met an almost naked fellow in the wheat field, went to their aunt, and suggested three days later that she take him in. Their aunt aid that, although they had been unable to save the life of her brother Franciszek, a Salesian priest who died in Dachau two weeks earlier, they might be able to save a life this time," said Kowalczyk.
"I am enormously happy that the initiative to award decorations to the last surviving residents of Oświęcim, Brzeszcze, and the surrounding villages who helped prisoners from the camp has arrived at such a conclusion. I think that displaying disinterested goodness, heroism, and a dedication is very important today. After all, we are living in times when hasty generalizations distort both the image of the epoch and the moral condition of man," said Auschwitz Museum director Dr. Piotr M.A. Cywiński.
The persons honored for saving human life and aiding the prisoners of the Auschwitz camp complex were:
Commander's Cross of the Order of Poland Reborn
- Wanda Sawkiewicz
- Antoni Tomera
Officer's Cross of the Order of Poland Reborn
- Kazimierz Ćwiklicki
- Antonina Gach
- Karol Kawecki
- Mieczysława Kołodziejczyk
- Kunegunda Kwiatkowska
- Franciszek Łysko
- Kazimierz Paw
- Kazimierz Ptasiński
- Włodzimierz Senkowski
- Róża Sklorz
- Janina Wawrzyczek
Knight's Cross of the Order of Poland Reborn
- Władysława Bielas
- Zofia Cylich
- Maria Dac
- Eugeniusz Daczyński
- Józefa Dudek
- Teresa Foltyn
- Władysław Foltyn
- Józefa Handzlik
- Ewa Jędrysik
- Aniela Kawa
- Władysława Paszek
- Helena Piórek
- Zofia Rapacz
- Józefa Smreczyńska
- Kazimiera Suwała
- Helena Szpak
- Stanisława Świątkowska
- Anna Wichman
- Zofia Zużałek
