Given name: Romuald -Romek Family name: Płonkowski

A Polish friend of Izaak-Stasiek, they worked as shoeblacks at the Central Station. Romek ran away from home, because his father was a drunkard and his step-mother was an evil spirit. The boys slept in the ruins, in the rubbish-dumps, in the boxes for sand, in a poorhouse. When Izaak-Stasiek confessed to Romek that he is a Jew, Romek wasn't impressed, but he bore a grudge that Izaak didn't trust him. They trade with German soldiers. Ordered by the Polish underground, they buy uniforms from the Germans. Romek makes friends with Jewish cigarette vendors ('papierosiarze'). He drowned in the Vistula river in summer 1944, trying to rescue a drowning boy.