Józef Bartoszko worked as caretaker of the city’s Great Synagogue, where German forces rounded up between 600 and 700 Jews on June 27, 1941, the first day of a pogrom against Białystok’s Jewish population.
Risking his life, Bartoszko opened a side window and helped a group of Jews escape the building.
According to some accounts, 29 people were saved. The synagogue was later set on fire.
An estimated 2,000 Jews were killed that day in the synagogue and elsewhere in Białystok. The massacre, remembered as Black Friday, marked the beginning of the extermination of the city’s Jewish community.
The newly named Józef Bartoszko Square is near a memorial shaped like the dome of the destroyed synagogue.
“We are honouring an ordinary, simple man who demonstrated extraordinary heroism,” Białystok Mayor Tadeusz Truskolaski said. “His deed was like a beam of light in the dark—a sign of hope that evil can be defeated.”
Bartoszko’s granddaughter Marta also attended. Visibly moved, she told reporters the family remembers him as “a real hero.”
