Wiktor Rudolf Ormicki (Nussbaum), the son of Fryderyk Wilhelm, a lawyer and a rail official and Salomea, neé Amenis – a Geography lecturer at the Jagiellonian University, was born on 1st February 1898 in Staroniwa, one of Rzeszów’s discticts. After graduating from grammar school and completing military service in the Austrian army, Nussbaum started studying at the Law Department of the Jagiellonian University.  In  the face of the Polish – Soviet  war, he ceased his education and joined the Polish Army. After coming back from the army in 1922, Nusbaum resumed his education, this time studying Geography in the Department of Philosophy at the Jagiellonian University.  The surname-change decision that he made in 1924 was a huge milestone in his life. He was no longer Nussbaum. He…

Edwin Opoczyński, the son of Aleksander Biberstein, a specialist in Orthopaedics and Surgery, was born on 25th January 1918 in Cracow. Edwin Opoczyński got his education in Cracow where he passed the maturity exam and subsequently, started studying Medicine at the Jagiellonian University.  On the day of WWII outbreak, Opoczyński was a 3rd year Medicine student who also worked as a volunteer at the Internal Diseases Ward of the Gabriel Narutowicz Hospital in Cracow.  After German invasion in September 1939, the continuation of his volunteer work at the hospital became impossible. Thus, Opoczyński moved to the Jewish Hospital located at Skawińska Street. After establishing a getto, the medical facility was included within its area.  After closing the Cracow’s getto in March 1943, Opoczyński was moved to the…

18 January 1892 marks the birth of Fryderyk Tadanier. Born in Kamionka Strumiłowa, Tadanir was a modernist architect. His works include the Municipal Savings Bank, (pl. Szczepański 5, designed with Stefan Strojek), the District Department on the corner of Słowackiego 18a and Łobzowska 44 (also together with Stefan Strojek), the reconstruction of the Main Post Office at Wielopole 2, the Regional Intermunicipal Association of Social Care at Praska, the Ćmielów Factory house at Biskupia 11 and Sereno Fenn 2, the reconstruction of the Theatre Bagatela, the Railway Station Post Office building in Kraków and he Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) at Pędzichów 27. Fryderyk Tadanier was a graduate of the the faculty of Civil Engineering in the Lvov Technical University. However, Tadanir decided to link his professional life…

BS”D 21 Elul 5781 In February 1945, right after the end of the German occupation, a plan was made to open a Jewish orphanage in Rabka, which would alleviate the situation of the Temporary Committee for Help for the Jewish Population in Kraków on ul. Długa 38. The children who had survived the camps would go there. Finally an orphanage for the sickest children was opened in Rabka at the end of June 1945. It included three villas (named Stasin, Juras and Niemen) and about 100 children were sent there, from various cities in Poland. The lists from the summer of 1945 show the presence of about 115 children who had witnessed the horrors of the Shoah. Parts of the local inhabitants were scandalised, especially Father Józef…

BS”D 17 Elul 5781 Wiktor Lezerkiewicz was born on 25 August 1919, he was the son of Abraham and Berta. Before the war he played football for Makkabi Kraków and was among those saved by Oskar Schindler. During the German occupation he was in the ghetto in Kraków and was sent to the camp in Belżec in October 1942 and managed to escape with his brother during the transport. The rest of the family was murdered. He went back to the Kraków ghetto and after the liquidation was sent to Płaszów. Thanks to Oskar Schindler in October 1944 he was in the Brünnlitz Camp, where he worked as an electrician until the liberation in May 1945. After the was he went back to Kraków and married Regina…

BS”D 12 Elul 5781 Julian Aleksandrowicz was born on 20 August 1908. He was a medical doctor, a professor of medicine and a philosopher. 20 sierpnia 1908 r. w Krakowie urodził się Julian Aleksandrowicz; lekarz internista, profesor nauk medycznych, filozof medycyny i hematolog. He became a medical doctor in 1933 and finished studying Physical Education next year. He also defended his doctoral thesis in 1934. In 1939 he was drafted into the army. He escaped from a POW camp and returned to Kraków in January 1940, but in 1941 he was taken to the ghetto in Kraków, where he organised one of the three hospitals. During the liquidation of the ghetto he escaped with his wife and children through the sewers and rejoined the army. He organised…