Alfred Antoni Potocki
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Alfred Potocki
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Count Alfred Potocki was the eldest son of Count Roman Potocki and Elżbieta Matylda Radziwiłł. The last master of Łańcut, Alfred played a significant role, from the first days of the German occupation until his departure in July 1944, providing help to all the inhabitants of Łańcut, including the sizeable Jewish community. Remaining at his post in September 1939, he assumed de facto responsibility for local townspeople as well as for the numerous Poles who sought refuge in Łańcut, providing material support as well as protection from the occupier's repressive policies. he would never refuse anyone help he could afford to give; making no distinction between Poles of Jewish descent and Gentiles, between the inhabitants of Łańcut and refugees from the West or from the East, between his own family and the rest of the community. Alfred also used his influence multiple times to arrange the release of prisoners from the Gestapo.
After the war broke out, Alfred Potocki's first intervention in defense of the Jewish population was saving the town's synagogue, an 18th-century landmark located on the market square, not far from the Castle. It had been set on fire by the Germans a few days after the invasion. Alfred sent his fire brigade put out the flames before they could do too much damage. Later the German authorities used the building to store grain. Today the Łańcut synagogue if one of the few surviving examples of 18th century Jewish religious architecture. Its beautiful frescoes were restored by the Łańcut Museum between 1983 and 1990. The latter also hung a plaque near the door commemorating Alfred Potocki's intervention, before returning the building to the Jewish community in 2008.
On September 26th the German military authorities ordered the Jews to leave town and cross the San river under the penalty of death. Alfred, engineer Sadowy, and his secretary Jan Wojnarowicz protested. Unable to oppose the order, they nonetheless obtained from the German authorities that a few Jewish families be allowed to stay. The official Vistula-San demarcation line was announced on September 28th. It separated Nazi and Soviet-occupied Poland, running 35 km to the east of Łańcut and splitting the city of Przemyśl in half. Civilian German authorities took control of Łańcut on October 10th. Protests voiced by Alfred Potocki and part of the City Council against the forced evacuation, allowed Łańcut to retain a core of its former Jewish community, which in turn later attracted Jews who emerged from hiding, returned illegally from the Soviet- occupied zone or simply refugees from western provinces annexed by the Reich. Some Jews went into hiding and returned later, joining those who had been allowed to stay. After a while, Jews from Łódż and Kalisz arrived [...] A few hundred of them. Alfred Potocki, either directly or through the "hungry kitchen", helped hundreds of refugees from Kalisz and Łódż, distributing potatoes and heating fuel.
Following the establishment by Alfred of a permanent public kitchen, nobody was turned down. Jewish families, however, did not want to take advantage, due to dietary laws and a fear of venturing outside their houses. The Judenrat set up its own bakery as well as a kitchen for the poor in the small Hasidic synagogue, and Alfred Potocki provided food supplies.
After shipping most of his art collections to Vienna, Alfred left Łańcut for good on July 23rd 1944, travelling to Cracow.
Alfred Potocki's memoirs were published in London, posthumously, in 1959
References[edit]
ALFRED POTOCKI’S ROLE IN HELPING THE ŁAŃCUT COMMUNITY 1939-1944 - Jan- Roman Potocki - https://www.zamek-lancut.pl/en/content/history/PDF/alfredpotocki_eng.pdf
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