Politicsסלומון מורל

Salomon Morel

Salomon Morel was a Polish communist security officer who commanded the Zgoda and Jaworzno camps and was later indicted in Poland before moving to Israel.

1919 to 2007Commanding the Zgoda campCommanding Jaworzno campPoland's extradition requests to Israel

Born: 15 November 1919, Garbów
Died: 14 February 2007, Tel Aviv
Occupation: civil servant, torturer
Education: Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Warsaw
Rank: colonel

Salomon Morel was born in 1919 in Garbów

Morel was born in 1919 in the village of Garbów near Lublin, Poland. His father was a Jewish baker who owned a small bakery. During the Great Depression he moved to Łódź to work as a sales clerk, then returned home when war broke out in 1939.

During World War II his family hid to avoid the ghetto. His parents and a brother were killed in 1942, while he and his brother Izaak were hidden by a Polish Catholic farmer, Józef Tkaczyk. Morel later joined communist partisans.

In 1944 he became a warden at Lublin Castle prison. In 1945 he commanded the Zgoda labor camp in Świętochłowice, where prisoners were tortured and many died. From 1949 to 1951 he commanded Jaworzno camp, which held political prisoners, and he led camps until they closed in 1956.

He later headed a prison in Katowice and became a colonel in the political police. In 1964 he earned a master's degree at Wrocław University. He was dismissed in 1968 during the Polish political crisis.

In 1990 Polish authorities began investigating the Zgoda camp, and Morel moved to Israel in 1992. In 1996 Poland indicted him, and Israel refused its extradition requests of 1998 and 2004. He died in 2007.