Polish pharmacist Thadeusz Pankiewicz saved countless lives by running the only pharmacy within the Krakow ghetto.

When the ghetto was established #OnThisDay in 1941, the Nazis offered to relocate Pankiewicz, as his pharmacy happened to be within the ghetto walls. He refused, choosing to stay in the ghetto until its destruction in March 1943.

Pankiewicz’s pharmacy aided Jews in multiple ways, such as by distributing hair dye to make the elderly look younger. This was helpful because Jews deemed unfit for labor—such as the elderly and the very young—were often the first deported “to the East,” the Nazi euphemism for killing centers in German-occupied Poland. Pankiewicz and his assistants also gave parents tranquilizers to quiet babies when being hidden or smuggled out of the ghetto. The pharmacy handed out bandages and medications, and Pankiewicz served as a liaison between Jews living in the ghetto and those outside its walls.

Due to its location, the pharmacy was often the last stop for Jews being sent to killing centers, and many left their valuables there in hopes they could retrieve them later. During the ghetto’s final days, Pankiewicz also created special hiding places in the pharmacy to store Torah scrolls, which were retrieved after the Holocaust.

The building overlooked the main SS assembly area for transports, making it easy for Pankiewicz to observe Nazi brutality. Published after the war, his memoir provides one of the only eyewitness accounts of what everyday life was like in the Krakow ghetto, as only 2,000 Jews imprisoned there survived the Holocaust.

Yet not everyone believed the experiences detailed in Pankiewicz’s memoir. A friend told him: “I read your little book—I even liked it—but you must have exaggerated your description of the murders and mistreatment the Germans inflicted on the Jews.” The scenes in Pankiewicz’s book are true, despite how difficult they may be to believe.

After the Holocaust, Pankiewicz was honored for his heroic work as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1983.

Photo: USHMM

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