Henryk's Story
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"Ration Card" Warsaw Ghetto. p.29 |
In 1894, before the World Wars or the Holocaust had even begun, Henryk Slawik was born in the small village of Szeroka, Poland. Upon graduating secondary school, he joined the Polish military. After serving time there, he went to the town of Silesia, where he became part of the police force. A member of a right-wing faction of the Polish Socialist Party, he also served as editor of a Socialist newspaper.
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"Refugees" History Place. |
In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, Henryk joined a mobilized police battalion that was part of the Krakow Army fighting the Nazis. On September 15, Henryk's battalion retreated toward the Hungarian border. Upon crossing the border, Henryk was placed in a refugee camp. Because of Slawik's fluent German, he was removed from the camp by Jozsef Antall, a member of the Hungarian ministries of internal affairs and responsible for civilian refugees, and was taken to Budapest where he began his work rescuing refugees.