Horbaczewski Paweł

Horbaczewski, Paweł Immediately after the German occupation of Warsaw, Professor Paweł Horbaczewski was appointed chairman of the Social Welfare Committee, set up to help citizens whose apartments had been bombed. Soon after assuming office, Horbaczewski began helping Jewish students, by providing them with documents which entitled them to hot meals, and allowed them to move freely through the city’s streets. With the establishment of the ghetto, Horbaczewski stepped up his rescue work, hiding over 20 Jews in his office, and delivering food supplies to Janusz Korczak’s orphanage. After he was dismissed in 1942, Horbaczewski rented the premises of his former office to enable Jews to continue hiding there. Professor Horbaczewski lived in the ghetto with his Jewish wife, but was allowed each day to visit his apartment on the Aryan side of the city, which he turned into a Jewish shelter. In 1943, Horbaczewski and his wife fled to Jędrzejów, in the Kielce district where, despite the distance, he maintained contact with his charges in Warsaw. After the war, Professor Horbaczewski was appointed honorary member of the Jewish Committee in Łódź. In 1950, the Horbaczewskis were arrested on charges of spying for the State of Israel and were sentenced to death. After being granted a reprieve in 1956, they immigrated to Israel where they spent the rest of their lives. In throwing in his lot with Jews, Professor Horbaczewski was guided by humanitarian principles, which overrode considerations of personal safety or economic hardship. On November 10, 1964, Yad Vashem recognized Professor Pawel Horbaczewski as Righteous Among the Nations.