[2] Henryk Sławik was born 16 July 1894 in Timmendorf (now Szeroka, a part of Jastrzębie-Zdrój),[1] into an impoverished Polish Silesian family as one of its 5 children.

Between 1934 and 1939 Sławik served as president of Polish Journalist Association of Silesia and Zagłębie (Syndykat Dziennikarzy Polskich Śląska i Zagłębia).

[1] At the outbreak of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 Sławik joined the Polish mobilised police battalion attached to the Kraków Army.

[citation needed] On 15 September Sławik and his men were ordered to retreat towards the newly established border with Hungary.

Thanks to his fluent knowledge of German, Sławik was brought to Budapest and allowed to create the Citizen's Committee for Help for Polish Refugees (Komitet Obywatelski ds.

To help disguise the true nature of the orphanage, the children were visited by Catholic Church authorities, most notably by nuncio Angelo Rotta.

His wife survived the Ravensbrück concentration camp and after the war found their daughter hidden in Hungary by the Antall family.

According to Maria Zawadzka of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Henryk Sławik was posthumously awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem Commemorative Authority already on 26 January 1977, but achieved wide recognition only after Zvi Henryk Zimmerman, his wartime associate and a distinguished Israeli politician, popularized his efforts in the 1990s.