Salomon Morel

Salomon Morel, born on November fifteenth, nineteen nineteen, was a notable figure in the Polish People's Republic, serving as an officer in the Ministry of Public Security. His career was marked by his role as a commander of various concentration camps operated by the NKVD and communist authorities until nineteen fifty-six.

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, Morel and his family went into hiding to escape the Jewish ghettos. He and his brother survived the Holocaust with the help of a local Polish farmer before joining communist partisans. In nineteen forty-four, he became the warden of the Soviet NKVD prison at Lublin Castle, and by nineteen forty-five, he was the commander of the Zgoda labor camp in Świętochłowice.

In nineteen forty-nine, Morel was appointed commander of the Jaworzno concentration camp, continuing to lead multiple camps until their closure in nineteen fifty-six, following the Polish October. He later served as the head of a prison in Katowice and achieved the rank of colonel in the political police, the MBP. However, his career came to an end during the political crisis of nineteen sixty-eight, which led to the purging of ex-Stalinists.

In the early nineteen nineties, Morel faced investigations by the Institute of National Remembrance for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the killings of over one thousand five hundred prisoners in Upper Silesia. In nineteen ninety-six, he was indicted on charges of torture and war crimes. Following media attention from Poland, Germany, Britain, and the United States, Morel fled to Israel, where he was granted citizenship under the Law of Return.

Poland made two requests for his extradition, in nineteen ninety-eight and two thousand four, but Israel denied these requests, citing the expiration of the statute of limitations and Morel's poor health. The controversy surrounding his extradition persisted until his death.