Vale Bogdan Jastrzębski (1924–2019)

Editorial staff / English translation: Andrew Rajcher, 11 January 2020

With great sorry, we received the news of the passing of Bogdan Jastrzębski (1924–2019), a Righteous Among the Nations (1993) and honoured, by the President of Poland, with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2007). He passed away on 25th December 2019 at the age of 95.

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I remember my first date with Krysia when I was fourteen years old. We rode bicycles - she on hers, I on mine. Two months later, Jews were no longer permitted to own bicycles.
– Bogdan Jastrzębski during an interview with POLIN Museum.

During the Holocaust, in German-occupied Poland, Bogdan Jastrzębski saved Krystyna Geisler, a girl whom he had met before the War and with whom he was in love.

In 1940, Krystyna and her family were forced to move into the Częstochowa ghetto. Every day, she would go to work at the German armaments factory. One day, Bogdan snatched her out of a column of workers. With the help of his mother, Maria Jastrzębska (née Sobertin), he found a hiding-place for her in the attic of a rented apartment. After the War, Bogdan and Krystyna were married.

On 6th June 1993, together with his mother Maria, Bogdan Jastrzębski was honoured by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerousalem with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. Their story has been published on our website, based on an interview Bogdan Jastrzębski gave to POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in 2007. POLIN Museum collection also contains Krystyna Geisler’s “kennkarte” (occupation identity card), donated by Bogdan Jastrzębski in 2014.