Vale Tadeusz Stankiewicz (1930–2024)

Redakcja, 18 April 2024

With deep sadness, we learned of the passing of Tadeusz Stankiewicz, the long-serving Vice-President of Vice-President of the Polish Association of the Righteous Among the Nations (2014–2024), honoured as Righteous by the Yad Vashem Institute (2006) and by the President of the Republic of Poland with the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2009). He passed away on 5th April 2024 at the age of 93. In farewelling Tadeusz Stankiewicz, we recall his biography and, especially, his activity during the period of German occupation when, together with his parents and sister, he aided persecuted Jews.

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"My father was a forester, so I basically lived in the countryside. I lived in forester's lodges - various ones because he would change jobs and we would have to move”, said Tadeusz Stankiewicz, in a biographical interview with POLIN Museum. "When the Germans established a ghetto in Opole Lubelskie [...] they began pursuing their policy of exploitation and plunder, basically cutting down the forests and doing forestry work. [...] My father then came up with a way to help the Jews and proposed that the Arbeitsamt set up a unit of Jewish workers”.

Tadeusz Stankiewicz was born on 7th August 1930 in Puławy (Lubelskie Województwo).

During the German occupation, the helped Jews, mainly from the ghetto in Opole Lubelskie. When in 1942, the Germans began the deportation of Jews to centres of extermination, more than 200 people were in hiding around the forester's lodge of the Stankiewicz family. Tadeusz's father, Stanisław, helped the Jews to build forest bunkers. He found them places in barns, granaries and dovecotes. He also helped source food for them.

On 22nd January 2006, in recognition of help given to Jews, Tadeusz Stankiewicz and his older sister, Barbara Dembek, were honoured by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem with the title of Righteous Among the Nations of the World. Twenty years later earlier, that title was posthumously awarded to their parents, Stanisław and Barbara.

From 29th November 2014, Tadeusz Stankiewicz served as Vice-President of Vice-President of the Polish Association of the Righteous Among the Nations, and was a frequent guest at the POLIN Museum. The ceremonial gala, marking the 30th anniversary of the Polish Association of the Righteous, which took place on 16th October 2016, remains as an unforgettable mutual experience, being the first-ever meeting of the Righteous from all over Poland.

The funeral of Tadeusz Stankiewicz will take place on 23rd April 2024, at 11:00am at St. Jadwiga's Church in Milanówek, near Warsaw. We express our sincere condolences to his family, relatives and colleagues of Tadeusz Stankiewicz.