Jan Nosal (pseud. „Stary”, „Boruta”, „Jan”) was born in 1883 in Wola Batorska. He began his professional career in Przewóz in Cieszyn Silesia, then part of Austro-Hungary. In 1910, he married Gabriela Šustkova, a Czech woman four years younger than himself.
The Nosal family lived in Brzeszcze from 1920 where Jan worked in the local coal mine. At that time, he was an active member of the miners’ trade union, the national authorities of the Polish Socialist Party, cooperatives and the Health Insurance Fund. In 1928, he was elected Polish Socialist Party member of the Sejm and elected mayor of Jaworzno in the spring of 1939 a position he held until the German occupiers removed him.
During the occupation, he was active in the underground structures of the Polish Socialist Party, heading up its Brzeszcze cells.
When KL Auschwitz was established, Jan and Gabriela Nosal became involved in helping the prisoners there. They obtained food and medicine for them, exchanged illegal correspondence (secret messages), and participated in preparing escapes from the camp. They continually expanded the network of people involved in rendering aid to the prisoners.
On the night of 9 August 1943, Gabriela and Jan Nosal were arrested by the Gestapo and transported to Bielsko. Later, they were sent to prison in Mysłowice, from where they were deported to KL Auschwitz. They were both killed there: Gabriela on 22 December 1943 and Jan on 13 January 1944.
They were both posthumously awarded the Order of the Cross of Grunwald III Class after the war.
Photographs: Collection of Remembrance Museum of Land of Oświęcim Residents / private archive of Marek Siuta.