Jan Dobraczyński



Jan Dobraczyński (born 20 April 1910 – 5 March 1994, Warsaw) was a Polish writer, novelist, politician and Catholic publicist. In the Second Polish Republic between the two world wars, he was a supporter of the National Party and Catholic movements. During the 1939 Nazi–Soviet invasion of Poland, he was a soldier of the Polish Army and member of Armia Krajowa until the end of World War II. Dobraczyński participated in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After the war he supported the Polish communists. He was a member of parliament Sejms, as activist of the PAX Association and of the Patriotic Movement for National Rebirth from 1982 to 1985. He held the rank of general in the Polish military.

The Holocaust rescue
During World War II, as the head of the Division for Abandoned Children at the Warsaw municipal welfare department, Jan Dobraczynski helped Żegota activists with procuring forged documents and placed several hundred Jewish children in Catholic convents. He was imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen following the Warsaw Uprising.

In 1985 Dobraczyński was awarded the Cross of Virtuti Militari. In 1986 he published his memoir titled Tylko w jednym życiu (Of One Life Only). In 1993 he was bestowed the title of the Polish Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.