Jerzy Bielecki, Polish social worker, survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp, Polish Righteous among the Nations recipient, died he was 90.

Jerzy Bielecki was a Polish social worker, best known as one of the rare inmates of the Auschwitz concentration camp who managed to survive the ordeal for several years and who escaped from the camp successfully in 1944. After the war he received the Righteous Among the Nations award.^[1] He also co-founded and headed the postwar Christian Association of the Auschwitz Families.^[2]

(28 March 1921 – 20 October 2011, Nowy Targ)

Biography

Bielecki was born in 1921 in Słaboszów, Poland. A pupil at a gymnasium in Kraków, at the outbreak of World War II he decided to join the Polish Army in the West. Caught at the border with Hungary on 7 May 1940, he was arrested by the Gestapo. A month later, on 14 June 1940 he was sent to the newly-created Auschwitz concentration camp with the first transport of 728 Polish political prisoners (his camp number was 243). His decent knowledge of the German language allowed him to work at a mill in Babice, where he came in contact with the Polish anti-Nazi resistance, the Home Army.^[1]
Assigned to an Arbeitskommando at Auschwitz, Bielecki met Cyla Cybulska, a Polish-Jewish inmate of Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) while serving at a grain warehouse. Despite the fact that men and women were not allowed to talk to each other, they managed to exchange a few words every day and they fell in love. Cyla's family had already been murdered. Bielecki promised that they both would survive the ordeal. With time, he secretly collected the necessary supplies for an escape. On 21 July 1944 they managed to cross the camp-gate together using a fake order-form prepared by Bielecki. He was dressed in an SS uniform stolen from the laundry room where she worked.^[3] They walked through the fields for ten days. Cybulska was initially hidden at Bielecki's uncle's house at Przemęczany, and later by the Czernik family in a nearby village.^[4] Bielecki himself joined the Home Army.^[5] However, towards the end of the war they became separated as Cyla Cybulska was informed that he had been killed during Operation Tempest, while he was told she left the country and died in Sweden. It was not until May 1983 in New York that Cybulska accidentally learned that he was alive and well, when a Polish woman cleaning her family's apartment mentioned a documentary with him which she saw. Cyla acquired his phone number, and the couple met the following month in Poland, on 8 June 1983, for the first time since the war ended.^[1][4]
After the war, Bielecki co-founded and became the honorary chairman of the Christian Association of the Auschwitz Families. He was also inscribed on the list of the Righteous Among the Nations (in 1985),^[4] and became an honorary citizen of Israel. He died in Nowy Targ on 20 October 2011.^[1] His escape from the camp with Cybulska was described in a number of documentaries and books, including Bielecki's own autobiography, Kto ratuje jedno życie... (He who saves one life...); published in 1990.^[1][6]


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