Vale Stanisław Wróbel (1920–2022)

Redakcja/Editorial staff; English translation - Andrew Rajcher, 20 August 2022
With deep sorrow, we received the news of the passing of Stanisław Wróbel (1920-2022), a Righteous Among the Nations (1989) who, in recent months, was the oldest Pole to have been honoured with this title. He passed away on 4th August 2022, aged 102. As a farewell to him, once again, we recall the story of the Wróbel family who, during the Holocaust, in German-occupied Poland, helped the Jewish Frankiel family, in Wola Załężna, near Opoczno (Mazowieckie Province).

"During all these years", said Stanisław Wróbel, in an interview for the POLIN Museum, "there was not a day when I didn't think about them and that fear”.

Stanisław Wróbel, together with his parents, Stanisław and Karolina née Sałaj, ran a small farm in the village Wola Załężna. Karolina's sister, Rozalia Dulnikiewicz, lived with them. 

After the Germans had liquidated the Opoczyno ghetto, the Wróbel family were asked for help by Jewish escapees Jakub and Sara Frankiel, their six-year-old son Herszel and Sara's sister, Bela Rozenberg. The Wróbel family hid them in the attic of their home, then in a hiding-place under the floor and, finally, in a cowshed, where they spent two years. 

» Read and listen to : the story of the Wróbel family

In recognition of the help provided during the Holocaust, on 16th May 1989, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem honoured Stanisław Wróbel and his family with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. On 11th September 1994, Rozalia Dulnikiewicz was also honoured with that title.

To the family of Stanisław Wróbel and to those close to him, we express our sincerest sympathies and condolences.