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Władysław Pawlas 1908 - 1940 Edit

Born 3.3.1908 in Sucha Góra
Died 28.8.1940 in Gusen

Biography

Władysław Pawlas was a Polish Protestant-Lutheran pastor. He came from a family of farmers. In 1926 he completed his education at the Polish Słowacki grammar school in Orlowa and began his studies at the Faculty for Protestant Theology at Warsaw University. After his ordination in spring 1933 he started work as a pastor in the parish of Ustroń. In autumn 1936 he moved to Wisła, where he became assistant pastor. He was a leading activist in the Związek Polskiej Młodzieży Ewangelickiej (Polish Protestant Youth Association), whose goal was to organise and bring together Protestant young people in order to educate them in the spirit of the Protestant Church for service to the church, the people and the homeland. From 1933 to 1936 he edited, in partnership with Pastor Dr. Andrzej Wantuła, the monthly magazine ‘Voice of Protestant Youth’. From 1937 to 1939 he served as president of the board of management of the Polish Protestant Youth in the voivodeship of Silesia.

The outbreak of war in September 1939 restricted Pastor Władysław Pawlas’s activities. Several months later, on 23 April 1940, he was deported, together with his nephew Jan Sikorska and his fellow teachers at Wisła, Jan Sztwiertnia, Michał Cieślar and Adolf Zyder, to Dachau concentration camp, where he was registered on 28 April 1940 in the arrivals book under prisoner number 6566. On 3 June 1940 he was transported to Mauthausen/Gusen. He died that same year on 28 August in Gusen. His ashes were buried in the family tomb in the graveyard in Sucha Średnia.

Danuta Szczypka

 

References:

A. Wantuła: Na skrzydłach rannej zorzy [On the wings of dawn]. In: Z doliny cienia śmierci [From the valley of the shadow of death] (London 1947), pp. 41–76.

J. Golec, S. Bojda: Słownik biograficzny Ziemi Cieszyńskiej [Biographical dictionary of Cieszyn], vol. 1 (Cieszyn 1993), p. 216.

M. Szlaur-Bujok: Ks. Władysław Pawlas – szkic do portretu [Pastor Władysław Pawlas – Sketch for a portrait], Yearbook from Wisła, vol. 2 (Wisła 2010), pp. 53–59.

 

Jerzy Klistała: Martyrologium Mieszkańców Ziemi Cieszyńskiej w latach 1939–1945 – Słownik biograficzny [Martyrology of the inhabitants of Cieszyn in the period 1939–1945 – Biographical Dictionary] (Cieszyn 2011), p. 340.

Translation into English: Joanna White

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