Józef Władysław Walaszczyk (13 November 1919 – 20 June 2022) was a Polish leatherworker and businessman who was declared Righteous Among the Nations in 2002 for sheltering Jews during the Holocaust.

[6] His mother decided to move from Warsaw to Rylsk where their cousin, Ludwik Okęcki, owned an estate and a potato flour factory.

When the Soviet Union attacked Poland on 17 September 1939, Walaszczyk and his cousin, who also was sent there, decided to return to Rylsk instead of going to the Romanian Bridgehead, which was their initial idea.

[12] In December 1939, thanks to his knowledge of German language, Walaszczyk was appointed manager of the factory and as administrator of the whole estate in Rylsk.

Most probably in 1941, one of his friends made before 1939, Wengrow, asked him to employ forty Jews from the ghetto in Rawa Mazowiecka.

He got permission from Miller, head of the local Arbeitsamt (labour office), convincing him with a large bribe to get 30 Jews.

At the police station, where the Home Army had its agent, he was informed that all 21 Jews would be released if he brought the Germans a kilogram of gold (2.2 lb) within 5 hours.

[9] Walaszczyk was also cooperating with the Polish resistance movement (amongst others Stanisław Miedza-Tomaszewski) and helping his Jewish friends living in the Warsaw Ghetto, bringing them food, medicines, and documents.

During one of his visits, in 1943,[17] he contracted typhus and spent a couple of weeks recovering at the flat on Emilii Plater St.[9] After the outbreak of the Warsaw uprising in 1944, Walaszczyk organised for Front, Staszewska, and Torbeczko to get out from the besieged city to the Red Cross camp in Podkowa Leśna and on to Rylsk.

[18] Just after the war Walaszczyk and Front moved to Kraków, where he set up new businesses, including organising Kraków–Katowice passenger journeys.

[9] Due to Walaszczyk's friendship with the French consul, the Security Service pressured him to leave Kraków.

Later, Walaszczyk and his Jewish colleagues ran a sewing room in Warsaw which was closed under pressure from the tax office.

[19] In the meantime, he got permission to work as a master of leatherwork which allowed him to open his own workshop on 18 Jana III Sobieskiego Street in Warsaw.

[22] In 2009, he was amongst the representatives of Polish Righteous during a visit to the United States, which included meeting with President Barack Obama.