Born in Krakow in 1951, Henryk Halkowski learned about the history of the Jews of Krakow, and especially Kazimierz district, at a young age thanks to his grandfather’s stories that strengthened Henryk’s attachment to Jewish tradition and influenced his interest in the subject in his adult life. He wrote about Polish Jews with passion and talent.

Halkowski was born into a Jewish family. His mother, Salomea, was a descendant of Hersz Baruch Engelberg, owner of a bookshop in Tarnobrzeg, and his father, Stanisław Halkowski (Salomon Hauchman), who came from Łódź, represented the traditions of merchants. His mother, as an exile, survived the Second World War in Siberia, while his father survived the Holocaust, being a prisoner in as many as 12 German concentration camps. The young Halkowski was named Henryk in honour of his grandparents.

After completing his education at the King Jan III Sobieski Secondary School in Kraków, Halkowski went on to study architecture at the Kraków University of Technology. He graduated in 1978. At the same time, he took up studies in philosophy at the Jagiellonian University, receiving his master’s degree in 1986.

While studying philosophy, he travelled to Israel in 1981, trying to learn Hebrew for 8 months. During this time, he worked on a kibbutz. The trip strengthened his attachment to Jewish history and culture.

In the second half of the 1980s, he became actively involved in the work of the Kraków branch of the Social and Cultural Society of Jews in Poland, and in the activities of the Jewish Religious Community in Kraków, which was established in 1993. He also cooperated with the Lauder Foundation. His work contributed to the establishment of the Jewish Culture Festival in Kraków in 1988.

From the late 1990s, his most important historical works on Krakow, Jewish Kazimierz, and Jewish tradition and culture began to be published. The most famous studies were “Legends from the Jewish Town in Kazimierz near Krakow” and then “Jews in Krakow. 700 years of history”, as well as “Jewish Krakow. Legends and People”. Historical activity was accompanied by journalistic work. This legacy became the pretext for the famous saying that “No Krakow without Henryk Halkowski and no Henryk Halkowski without Krakow”.

Halkowski was also an expert on the philosophy of Abraham Joshua Heschel, being the first person in Poland to translate his books from English into Polish.

A tireless populariser of Jewish history and culture, he died suddenly of a heart attack on 1 January 2009 in Krakow, leaving behind a rich legacy that included many works of various kinds on the subject.