Student
His father Jan Baczkowski lived in Koszyce during World War I. After an accident he suffered while working in a mine, he received compensation for which, after settling in Brzeszcze, he opened a canteen for miners. Since the business was developing well, in the following years he purchased a building in which, after renovating it, he opened a bakery, a shop and a tavern. Thanks to their great diligence, the family enjoyed prosperity. The Baczkowskis had four sons and a daughter. The oldest son Jan was a student at the Warsaw School of Economics, Władysław studied at the Jagiellonian University at the Faculty of Law, and Leopold was to take over the family business. The youngest of the sons, Mieczysław, born on September 26, 1919 in Brzeszcze, attended the Private Coeducational Grammar School and High School named after Father Stanisław Konarski in Oświęcim. In the school year 1938/39 he was allowed to take the secondary school leaving exam and after passing it he was to start studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków at the Faculty of Medicine.
After the outbreak of the war the family was relocated to nearby Jawiszowice, and all the businesses except the bakery were confiscated by the Germans.
In April 1940 German policemen came to the house where our family lived. They wanted to arrest Władysław and Mieczysław Baczkowski. Since they did not find them (the brothers had escaped, intending to join the underground), they informed the family that if they did not report, they would arrest their sick father in their place. In this situation, the brothers, in order to save him, surrendered themselves to the Germans. Initially, they were taken to a prison in Bielsko. Some time later, a notification came that Władysław and Mieczysław were in the Dachau concentration camp – recalled Mieczysław’s daughter Katarzyna Wąsik.
The next correspondence from their son was received by his parents from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where he was in block no. 16 and had the camp number 6652. Mieczysław Baczkowski, on the advice of an older fellow prisoner, volunteered to work in a quarry as a blaster’s assistant, which to some extent protected him from persecution. After some time, his brother Władysław smuggled information out of the camp that Mieczysław was seriously ill and his life was in danger. Then Jan Baczkowski asked the German – the director of the Brzeszcze Mine (which at that time was part of Bergwerksverwaltung Oberschlesien GmbH der Reichswerke Hermann Göring – the Upper Silesian Mining Administration, part of the Hermann Göring Works), to try to get his sons released from the concentration camp, justifying it with the need to employ them in the mine. These actions, supported by a high ransom, proved effective and both sons were released from the camp on 27 November 1940. After returning from the camp, Mieczysław Baczkowski was employed on 1 March 1941 in the Brzeszcze Mine as a blaster.
After the end of the war, he passed his secondary school leaving exam and obtained a trade education. In 1945, he moved to Andrychów and married Irena Hajkowska. He had two children: a son Marek (born 1947) and a daughter Katarzyna (born 1952). He worked at the General Consumer Cooperative “Społem” and the Provincial Internal Trade Enterprise. He was a long-time activist in the skiing section of the Beskid Andrychów Sports Club. He died in 1997.
From top: Mieczysław Baczkowski (first from the left) in the company of friends, 1930s; group photo of peers, visible among others Mieczysław Baczkowski (second from the left), Brzeszcze, 1930s. Below: Mieczysław Baczkowski during his stay in the Tatra Mountains, 1930s.