Wladyslaw was born to Catholic parents in Russian-occupied Poland. He grew up in Plock, a town located in a rural area north of Warsaw. Wladyslaw married in 1918 and he and his wife, Marie, raised four children.

1933-39: Wladyslaw worked as a bookkeeper, and then as an accountant for a local farmers' cooperative. In 1931 he was sent to the town of Wyszogrod to close a failing branch of the farmers cooperative. A year later, he organized a new, successful cooperative in Wyszogrod with local farmers and landowners. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the cooperative was taken over by the Germans, and Wladyslaw and the employees were ordered to stay on.

1940-42: On April 6, 1940, Wladyslaw and his eldest son Janusz were arrested at home in Wyszogrod by German police. They were taken to a large empty hall, where many men had been placed facing the wall. One by one, more men were brought in. After several hours, Wladyslaw was told to go home. His son was among the 129 arrested and deported to concentration camps. After that Wladyslaw, who had returned to the cooperative, joined the Polish resistance. In May 1942 he was arrested, and tortured for four months.

On September 18, 1942, Wladyslaw and 12 other prisoners were publicly hanged by the Germans in the former Jewish section of Plock.

Wladyslaw Piotrowski