Tadeusz Pankiewicz worked in the Apteka pod Orłem (Eagle Pharmacy) in the Kraków area of Podgόrze from 1927 on. In March 1941 the German occupiers converted the neighborhood into a ghetto. Non-Jewish people were not permitted to enter. Pankiewicz bribed the authorities so that he could continue running his business. He observed violent attacks on Jews on the central square outside the pharmacy. Up to the ghetto’s clearance in March 1943, Pankiewicz and his co-workers supported Jews, even though this was banned and punishable by death sentence. They not only provided medical help, but also passed on messages between ghetto inmates and their relatives hiding outside the ghetto. The pharmacy staff obtained forged documents for persecuted Jews, secretly exchanged ghetto inmates’ valuables for food, passed on information, and gave consolation. During the raids in the ghetto and deportations to extermination camps, Pankiewicz hid Jews in the pharmacy.
In 1983 Pankiewicz was honored posthumously in Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.