Władysław Muchowski - Instytut Pileckiego
Władysław Muchowski was murdered for helping Jews during a show execution organized by the Germans in the Złotopolice forest on November 21, 1943.
In the autumn of 1939, Northern Mazovia was incorporated directly into the Third Reich as Regierungsbezirk Zichenau, which formed part of Gau East Prussia. The Regierungsbezirk covered several counties, including the Płońsk county. In September 1940, a ghetto was established in Płońsk, and the Germans resettled 12,000 Jews there. Following the liquidation of the ghetto in December 1942, almost all residents were deported to the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Those who managed to avoid execution or deportation began a dramatic struggle for survival. Among Poles who went to the aid of Jewish escapees were Stanisława Trzcińska and her adult sons from Skwary in the Naruszewo commune, Ignacy Ambroziak, who lived with his wife Rozalia and son Henryk in Cholewy, and Władysław Muchowski, who ran a farm in Michałowo together with his family.
The Germans were looking for Jewish fugitives also at Władysław Muchowski’s house. The gendarmes from Naruszewo conducted a search of premises, brutally beating up Władysław and his son, Henryk, to force confession. Although the Germans didn’t find any Jews, they took Władysław and Henryk to the station in Naruszewo, from where Henryk was released and Władysław sent to Pomiechówek.
Towards the end of October 1943, the Germans held a briefing for village administrators from the communes where the arrested men had lived. They ordered that representatives of the villages in question must come to the edge of the forest between Złotopolice and Kamienica-Wygoda on 21 November for an execution of Poles who had been hiding Jews. On that day, the Gestapo men and gendarmes brought seven convicts from Pomiechówek, i.e. Stefan Trzciński, Ignacy Ambroziak, Władysław Muchowski, Symcha Frost, a Jew unknown by name and two other Poles (their surnames remain unknown, but they could have been Stefan Dubracki and Jan Wójcik). The Jews were hanged for alleged robberies and arms possession, while the Poles for hiding Jews and providing them with assistance. After a while the Germans ordered the village administrators to remove the bodies of the murdered and take them to the cemetery in Smoszewo. After the war, an exhumation of the murdered men was organized. Ignacy Ambroziak and Władysław Muchowski were buried in Radzymin.
In 1991, the Yad Vashem Institute awarded the Righteous Among the Nations titles to Ignacy Ambroziak and his wife Rozalia, to Stanisława Trzcińska and her sons, Stefan and Jan, as well as to Władysław Muchowski.
Testimony of witness Jan Trzciński, 23 May 1985
I wanted to find out what happened to my brother and mother, and I learned that first they were taken to the gendarmerie post in Naruszewo, and from there to the penal and investigative prison in Pomiechówek. Towards the end of October 1943, the Gestapo men held a briefing for all village administrators from the Naruszewo commune and ordered them to gather people from their villages at the edge of the forest in Złotopolice on 21 November 1943 to witness what the Germans do to those who are hiding Jews. I didn’t go there, because I was in hiding, but I learned why the Germans actually wanted the village administrators to be there at that time. It turned out that the gendarmes from Naruszewo and the Gestapo men from Płońsk, Nowy Dwór and Płock hanged 7 men in Złotopolice; among them was my brother Stefan Trzciński, farmers Ambroziak and Muchowski from Cholewy, two Poles from Warsaw or its vicinity and two Jews. The bodies of the hanged men were buried in a pit at the execution site.