Tadeusz Gebethner – Righteous Among Footballers

KJ, 16 November 2016
Coming from a family of booksellers and publisher, from his youth Tadeusz Gebethner had a passion for football. In 1911, as a fourteen year old, his began playing for the unofficial Warsaw club “Polonia” and, shortly thereafter, became its captain. The club was registered in 1915 and Gebethner, not yet eighteen, was elected its President. He played 137 games for the club.

Gebethner’s sporting career ended in 1925 and he began working in his family’s bookselling/publishing business, “Gebethner & Wolff”. He looked after the business’s many branch bookshops in Poland and abroad.

With the outbreak of war in 1939, he joined the 102nd Ułanów Regiment. His group were interned in a camp in Lithuania, but Gebethner managed to escape. In 1941, he returned to Warsaw and was active in the Armia Krajowa (Home Army).

In the summer of 1942, the Abrahamer Jewish family turned to Gebethner asking for help to hide them. Abrahamer was a former employee of his family’s business. Even though Gebethner did not know the family personally, he immediately agreed to take the family into his own apartment at ul. Śniadeckich 23. In the spring of 1944, taking advantage of his AK contacts, he sent the family to Hungary where they remained until the end of the War.

In August 1944, Tadeusz Gebethner took part in the Warsaw Uprising. He was repeatedly wounded during the fighting and died in October 1944. In 1981, he was posthumously honoured with the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

More information about Tadeusz Gebethner can be found on the Yad Vashem Institute and “Poles Through the Ages” (Polak Wszech Czasów) websites.

Translated by Andrew Rajcher.