Kowalski Władysław

Kowalski, Władysław During the occupation, Władysław Kowalski, a qualified engineer and colonel in the Polish army, put all his energy and money into saving Jews. His courageous rescue activities began already in the summer of 1940, when a Jewish boy called Bruno Boral approached him in the street stating: “I am a Jewish boy, who is being persecuted. I haven’t eaten for three days. Please buy me something to eat.” Kowalski immediately did as requested, and arranged shelter for Boral in a friend’s house, thereby saving his life. From that day on, Kowalski decided to make saving Jews his life’s mission. He let his house in Warsaw be used as a shelter for Jewish refugees, and arranged hiding places for others with his relatives and friends. Despite the danger, he provided the refugees with food and saw to their needs, until the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. In early October 1944, the uprising was brutally suppressed and all Warsaw’s inhabitants were forced out of the city. Kowalski refused to abandon the Jewish refugees hiding under his care; he prepared a bunker amid the rubble of Warsaw and stayed there with his charges until January 1945, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. Among the survivors who owed their lives to Kowalski were: Lea Buchholz (whom he later married); Aron and Helena Bialer; Mieczysław and Barbara Rezyka and Rachel and Józef Tylia, all of whom Kowalski smuggled out of the ghetto and helped while they were hiding on the Aryan side of the city. Before the deportation of the remnants of the Jews from the ghetto in the town of Izbica, in the county of Krasnystaw, Lublin district, Kowalski entered the ghetto and, at great personal risk, smuggled out Chaim and Malvina Rozen, their daughter, Wanda, and Rozen’s sister, Ada, and arranged for them to stay with a friend, thereby saving their lives. From September 1942 to August 1944, Kowalski hid Aron and Helena Bialer, Golda and Roman Fischer, Roman’s brother Mordechai, Seweryn and Wanda Wachholer, Mieczysław and Barbara Rezyka, Dawid Goldfarb, and Bina Bergman in his cellar. After the war, Kowalski and his wife, Lea, immigrated to Israel, where Kowalski was treated like a hero. Most of the refugees saved by Kowalski immigrated to Israel after the war. The remainder immigrated to Canada, the United States, Australia, France, Brazil, Germany, and Belgium. Kowalski died in 1971 at the age of 76 and was buried at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. Engraved on Kowalski's tombstone is the image of the Yad Vashem Righteous medal and the inscription Righteous Among the Nations who risked his life to save Jews during the Holocaust.” On June 4, 1963, Yad Vashem recognized Wladyslaw Kowalski as Righteous Among the Nations.