Tadeusz Pankiewicz (November 21, 1908, in Sambor – November 5, 1993, buried in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula, Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland un ...

), was a Polish

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

pharmacist A pharmacist, also known as a chemist (Commonwealth English) or a druggist (North American and, archaically, Commonwealth English), is a healthcare professional who prepares, controls and distributes medicines and provides advice and instructi ...

, operating in the

Kraków Ghetto The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and ...

during the Nazi German occupation of Poland. He was recognized as "

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

" by

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

on February 10, 1983, for rescuing countless

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

s from the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. Pankiewicz studied at the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University ( Polish: ''Uniwersytet Jagielloński'', UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in ...

in Kraków. In 1933, he took over the proprietorship of the Under the Eagle Pharmacy founded in 1910 by his father Jozef.Museum of National Remembrance at "Under the Eagle Pharmacy"
/ref> The pharmacy was situated on Plac Zgody (formerly ''Mały Rynek'' square) in Kraków's Podgórze district. Its prewar clientele included both Gentile Poles and Jews.

In the Kraków Ghetto

Under the German Nazi occupation of Poland during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Podgórze district was closed off in March 1941 as a

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished ...

for local area Jewry. Within the walls of the

, there were four prewar pharmacies owned by non-Jews. Pankiewicz was the only proprietor to decline the German offer of relocating to the

gentile Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...

(non-Jewish) side of the city. He was given permission to continue operating his establishment as the only pharmacy in the Ghetto, and reside on the premises.David M. Crowe
The Holocaust: Roots, History, and Aftermath.
Published by Westview Press. Page 180. His staff were given passage permits to enter and exit the ghetto for work. The often-scarce medications and pharmaceutical products supplied to the ghetto's residents, often free of charge, substantially improved their quality of life. In effect, apart from health care considerations, they contributed to survival itself. In his published testimonies, Pankiewicz makes particular mention of hair dyes used by those disguising their identities and tranquilizers given to fretful children required to keep silent during

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

raids. The pharmacy became a meeting place for the ghetto's intelligentsia, and a hub of underground activity. Pankiewicz and his staff, Irena Drozdzikowska, Helena Krywaniuk, and Aurelia Daner-Czortkowa, risked their lives to undertake numerous clandestine operations: smuggling food and information, and offering shelter on the premises for Jews facing deportation to the camps. One of the surviving 'Schindlerjude' Stella Müller-Madej described Pankiewicz as “a wonderful human being” and remained close to him after the war. On one occasion, he hid Stella under his desk during a German Aktion or roundup in the ghetto.

After World War II

In 1947 Pankiewicz published a book of his memoirs called Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim' (English: The Pharmacy in the Krakow ghetto)'.'' On February 10, 1983, Tadeusz Pankiewicz was awarded recognition as a "Righteous Among the Nations" for his wartime activities in rescuing Jews. In April of that year, he was present at the inauguration of the national heritage museum housed in the ''Apteka Pod Orłem'' building. Tadeusz Pankiewicz died in 1993 and is buried in Kraków's Rakowicki Cemetery. In April 1983, the "Pod Orlem" pharmacy, located at No.18 Plac Bohaterów Ghetta (Ghetto Heroes Plaza, renamed), opened its doors as the Museum of National Remembrance, featuring the history of Kraków Jewry with a special focus on the ghetto period. In 2003, it became affiliated with the municipal

Historical Museum of Kraków The Historical Museum of the City of Kraków ( pl, Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa) in Kraków, Lesser Poland, was granted the status of an independent institution in 1945. Originally, it was a branch of the Old Records Office of Kraków, in oper ...

. The wartime activities of Pankiewicz and his staff are featured in an exhibition on the history of the Jewish ghetto in Kraków. The pharmacy was featured in the film ''

Schindler's List ''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the 1982 novel ''Schindler's Ark'' by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film f ...

.'' The film's director

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Sp ...

donated $40,000 for the building's preservation, for which he was honored by the city of Kraków with its prestigious "Patron of Culture" award for the year 2004. He was not the only director of a Holocaust-related movie, who paid tribute to Pankiewicz's activity: in 2002

Roman Polanski Raymond Roman Thierry Polański , group=lower-alpha, name=note_a ( né Liebling; 18 August 1933) is a French-Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, tw ...

, once a prisoner of the Krakow ghetto himself, donated a sum of money for the expansion of the museum in the former pharmacy.

Footnotes

Bibliography

* ''The Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy'' by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, translated from the Polish by Garry Malloy. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2013. . * ''The Cracow Ghetto Pharmacy'' (translation by Henry Tilles of ''Apteka w getcie krakowskim''). New York: Holocaust Library, 1987. , 089604 0879. The book ''Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim'' is also available in Hebrew with reprinted editions, published by Yad Vashem and translated from Polish by writer Miriam Akavia. * Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin, ''Righteous Among Nations: How Poles helped the Jews, 1939–1945''. London: Earlscourt Publications, 1969, pp. 222–226. Includes first-person testimony by Pankiewicz. * Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin, ''The Samaritans: Heroes of the Holocaust'' (translated from the Polish: ''Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej'', 1966), ed. Alexander T. Jordan. N.Y.: Twayne Publishers, 1970, pp. 173–178. * Sara Bender and Shmuel Krakowski, eds., ''The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.'' Poland, Volume II. Jerusalem:

Publications, 2004, p. 579. * ''The Eagle Pharmacy: History and Memory: A Collection of Essays Accompanying the Permanent Exhibition Tadeusz Pankiewicz's Pharmacy in the Krakow Ghetto'' by Jan Gryta, Muzeum Historyczne Miasta Krakowa, 2013. .

External links

*
The "Under the Eagle" Pharmacy guidebook
at

homepage.
Tadeusz Pankiewicz
– his activity to save Jews' lives during the

, at

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Pankiewicz, Tadeusz 1908 births 1993 deaths Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany Catholic Righteous Among the Nations Polish pharmacists Polish people of World War II Polish Righteous Among the Nations Jagiellonian University alumni Burials at Rakowicki Cemetery Kraków Ghetto inmates