Henryk Sławik was a journalist, combatant in the Silesian Uprisings, and member of the pre-war Polish Socialist Party. During the Second World War, he organised help for Polish and Jewish refugees who escaped Poland and reached Hungary. It is estimated that thanks to his actions over 30,000 Polish refugees were saved from German persecution, including some 5,000 Jews. For that, he was posthumously awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations and the Order of the White Eagle. He is considered a hero of the Polish, Jewish and Hungarian nation. 

Henryk Sławik was a political activist working to bring Upper Silesia to Poland and end the German domination in the region. After Silesia became part of Poland in 1922 he returned to his political career. Between 1920-1928, he was the editor of the socialist “Gazeta Robotnicza”, and in 1928 he took the position of editor-in-chief of the newspaper. 

At the beginning of September 1939, due to the Nazi-German invasion of Poland, he was forced to leave Upper Silesia. Because of his involvement in social and political work, he would make a perfect aim for the German repression system. Sławik was one of those mentioned in the so-called: Sonderfahndungsbuch Polen or the Special Book for Poland, which contained a list of those who, due to their position and activism, were considered a threat to the German occupation authorities and shall be detained immediately after the defeating Poland. On 21 September 1939, Mr Sławik fled to Hungary. 

In Hungary, Henryk Sławik headed the Civic Committee for the Care of Polish Refugees and was later appointed delegate of the Minister of Labour of the Polish Government in Exile. Sławik took special care of some 5,000 Polish Jews who sought refuge in Hungary. In 1940, he initiated a scheme to issue them with fabricated documents with typically Polish names and Catholic baptism certificates.

Together with several Jewish refugees, and members of Hungarian clergy:  priest Dr Miklós Beresztóczy and Bishop of Vác, Dr. Árpád Hanauer organised an orphanage for Jewish children in the town of Vác, officially called the Polish Officers Orphans Home. The facility operated a kindergarten and a school.  Jewish children were also secretly taught Hebrew and the Torah while officially attending catholic mass for safety reasons.

In Hungary, he also met a lawyer and government commissioner for refugee affairs with the rank of minister, József Antall, who took special care of several thousand Polish children and young people, setting up schools for them, including a high school in Balatonboglar.

Thanks to the commitment of Sławik the children from Vacu were able to survive the war. In May 1944, after the Third Reich decided to occupy Hungary, the kids were secretly transported to Budapest and granted safe locations in the city to wait until the end of German rule. 

For his actions, Sławik was arrested by the Gestapo in July 1944, probably as the result of a secret report from one of his associates. The German security forces were mainly interested in information about the Hungarian involvement in transferring Poles to the West and Sławik’s role in saving Jews. Sławik claimed entire responsibility for the coordinated action, despite being tortured in a brutal investigation.

After the investigation, Sławik was sent to the Mauthausen camp. In the death camp, he was sentenced to death by hanging and killed on 23 August 1944. The motives of the sentence said: “for the help in hiding Jews and organising the transfer of Polish soldiers in Hungary to General Sikorski’s army”. 

For his commitment to aid Jews, he was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations Medal in 1990.

In 2010, President Lech Kaczyński awarded Henryk Sławik the highest Polish decoration, the Order of the White Eagle. Jozsef Antall was then posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

Tomasz Modrzejewski

Photo: IPN