After the release he organized secret teaching for students of pharmacy and chemistry in Nazi-occupied Kraków.
He born in Lemberg, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as the son of Juliusz Kocwa and Zofia Dąbrowiecka, grandson of Aniela Vetulani from his father's side.
[1] After returning to Kraków, in the years 1941–1945 he worked as a manager of the factory and analytical laboratory of the company "Pharma".
[1] In 1945 he returned to the position of professor and head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Jagiellonian University.
In 1958 he was re-dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, which administratively entered already part of newly established autonomous Medical College in Kraków.