On the 80th jubilee of the State Museum at Majdanek, we once again appealed to the public, calling for donations of the mementos left by the camp survivors to the Museum collections. This request was addressed primarily to the descendants of the former prisoners, who might keep some documents, photographs, or various items related to the camp history in their family archives.

Among the people that answered our appeal, there was prof. Maria Ciesielska, a scholar specialising in researching the history of medicine, who for years has been investigating the fates of physicians that were imprisoned in German concentration camps. She is also the author of numerous articles published in journals and academic volumes.

She helped the Museum establish contact with Zofia Halpern and Henryk Willmann – the children of dr Henryk Wieliczański (Izaak Halpern Wieliczański). He was a physician, Home Army soldier, former prisoner of the KL Lublin, KL Auschwitz, KL Flossenbürg concentration camps, and a fighter in the 1945 Prague uprising. His descendants decided to donate their father’s mementos to the Museum.

That collection includes 87 items of various types: photographs, academic degrees, certificates, doctor’s ID cards, medals, or press cuttings documenting the achievements of dr Wieliczański.

The diploma and the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations that was awarded to Henryk Wieliczański and his wife Teodozja is of particularly exceptional value. The couple saved a Jewish woman named Sara Celnik from the Holocaust. They gave her shelter in their home and Sara survived the war.

A considerable part of the donated collection contains personal documents and photographs of Teodozja Wieliczańska (née Zwolińska): the copy of her 1942 Kennkarte, the 1944 Ausweis, her student ID issued by the University of Łódź in 1946, as well as witness statements confirming that Teodozja was an active member of the Polish Syndicalist Union and the Home Army together with the accounts of her activities in the resistance combat operations.

The donated sources not only enrich our knowledge about Henryk Wieliczański, but also document his post-war fate and his career achievements.

After World War II, dr Wieliczański settled with his family in Łódź, where he was a secretary of the city’s Medical Council. In 1968 he emigrated to Denmark. He was among the witnesses testifying against the former Majdanek SS personnel members during the last large war criminals trial in Düsseldorf. In February 1981, Henryk was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations title by the Yad Vashem Institute. He passed away in Copenhagen on 6 March 1996.