Vale Władysław Misiuna (1925-2022)

Redakcja / Editorial staff / English translation: Andrew Rajcher, 18 October 2022
With deep sorrow, we learned of the passing of Władysław Misiuna (1925-2022), a Righteous Among the Nations (1966) and an Honorary Citizen of the State of Israel. Throughout his life, he worked for the betterment of relations between Poland and Israel and for friendly relations between Poles and Jews. Among his other activities, he was co-founder of the Community Committee for the Revalourisation of the Radom Jewish Cemetery. He passed away of 2nd October 2022, in Warsaw, at the age of 97. In bidding Władysław Misiuna farewell, once again, we recall his story of helping Jewish in German-occupied Radom.

"The traces of [ed: my] activity has been preserved not in writing, but in memory - something that I could see while in Israel, during a meeting with my friends who recited poetry from memory”, saaid Władysław Misiuna during an interview for the POLIN Museum.

During the years of German occupation, Władysław Misiuna worked as a keeper of rabbits on the grounds of the Arms Factory warehouse in Radom (Mazowieckie Province), where of branch camp of the Majdanek concentration camp (KL Lublin) had been established. At his request, Jewish women from the Radoom ghetto were brought in to help care for the rabbits. Misiuna cared for these women, providing them with food, medicines, hygeine products and, above all, supported them spiritually and morally - he even wrote poems for them.


» Read and listen to more: The Story of Władysław Misiuna


On 28th June 1966, in recognition of the help which he had provided during the Holocaust, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem honoured Władysław Misiuna with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. In addition, he was made an Honorary Citizen of the State of Israel and was also awarded the Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

To the family, relatives and friends of Władysław Misiuna, we express our sincerest condolences.