Wojciech Henryk Pawlik
Lovingly known as “Wojtek”
30 June 1957 — 19 July 2025 · aged 68
Jagiellonian University professor of geology, miner's son who read the stories in coal
Kraków, Poland Born in Nikiszowiec, Katowice Resting at Cemetery in Katowice-Janów, beside his parentsAbout Wojciech
As a boy in Nikiszowiec, Wojciech Pawlik was told never to touch the lumps of coal his father brought home on his boots, and so naturally he kept the ones with leaves inside.
The leaves were three hundred million years old. The boy did not know that yet; he only knew they were beautiful, ferns pressed into black stone as if between the pages of a book, and that nobody else at school seemed interested. His father, Henryk, a miner at the Wieczorek colliery, would not explain them, but he cleared a shelf for them. By fourteen Wojciech had a catalogue. By nineteen he had a place to study geology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the first in the family to leave the district for anything except the mine.
He took his doctorate in 1987 on the fossil plants of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin and spent thirty-five years at the Faculty of Geography and Geology, becoming a full professor in 2003. He taught palaeobotany, mapped coal seams with his students, and wrote a popular children's book about ferns in coal that sold mostly in Silesia, mostly, he said, to retired miners buying it for their grandchildren. He was a generous supervisor, a tuneless baritone at Christmas parties, and a collector of student theses with good jokes in the acknowledgements.
He married Beata in 1983, and they raised Piotr and Agnieszka in a flat near the Błonia meadow in Kraków, with a window box of red geraniums and, by the front door, a fern fossil in a shoebox lid. Every Barbórka, on 4 December, he drove to Nikiszowiec to stand beside his father; after Henryk died in 2019 he went anyway, and laid a lump of coal tied with red ribbon on the grave. He was a quiet man whose gift was making other people feel that their work mattered.
Wojciech died on 19 July 2025 in Kraków after a short illness, with Beata and the children beside him. As he asked, he was buried in Katowice-Janów next to his parents, with a fern leaf in his pocket. He leaves Beata, Piotr, Agnieszka, two grandchildren and a generation of geologists who say, when a rock puzzles them, 'What would Pawlik have asked?'
“A rock is only a very patient witness.”
- Faith
- Catholic
- Place of birth
- Nikiszowiec, Katowice
- Resting place
- Cemetery in Katowice-Janów, beside his parents
- Passed away
- 19 July 2025, Kraków
Funeral Mass
Saturday, 26 July 2025 at 10:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
Studied Geology
Jagiellonian University1976 – 1981 · Kraków
The first in his family to leave the district for anything but the mine.
PhD in Palaeobotany
Jagiellonian University1981 – 1987 · Kraków
Thesis on fossil plants of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin.
Married Beata Dudek
1983 · Kraków
A marriage of forty-two years.
Assistant Professor
Jagiellonian University, Faculty of Geography and Geology1987 – 2003 · Kraków
Taught palaeobotany and led student field trips across Silesia.
Full Professor of Geology
Jagiellonian University, Faculty of Geography and Geology2003 – 2022 · Kraków
Supervised more than ninety theses.
Public lecturer and children's author
Silesian Museum2008 – 2024 · Katowice
Brought fossil ferns to schools across Upper Silesia.
Medal of the National Education Commission
Republic of Poland2012 · Warsaw
For outstanding service to education.
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Family & connections
Also remembered on Evermore
Wojciech is survived by
- Beata Pawlik· Spouse
- Piotr Pawlik· Son
- Agnieszka Pawlik-Lis· Daughter
- 2 grandchildren· Grandchildren
- Teresa Nowak· Sister
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Wojciech.
Knew Wojciech? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- EM
Curator, Silesian Museum
He gave the museum his fossil collection, four hundred and twelve specimens, each labelled in his small neat hand. The card on the first reads: 'Found at age nine. My father said not to touch it.' It will go on permanent display, and visitors will read it and smile.
- JG
Schoolfriend from Nikiszowiec
Wojtek and I played football on the slag heap and he always came home with pockets full of rocks and my mother complaining about the washing. When we were fifty he showed me a fern in a lump on the ground. 'Older than the dinosaurs,' he said. I said, 'Older than us.' We both laughed.
- PH
Palaeobotanist, University of Leeds
We met at a conference in 1993 and spent twenty-five years arguing about Carboniferous ferns by email. He was always right, and always so gently that I did not notice until weeks later. Science loses a fine mind. I lose a friend who laughed at my Polish accent.
- TN
Nephew, grandson of Henryk
Uncle Wojtek taught me what Grandpa never could: that the coal under our feet had once been a forest. I teach geography to children in Gliwice now, and I tell them about the fern. It always works. They look at the floor differently afterwards.
- DW
Former PhD student
He drove us across Silesia in a battered Polonez in 1999 and made us climb into a disused quarry to find a single leaf print. 'Patience is the only tool geologists really need,' he said. We found it at dusk. He cried. I have never seen a happier professor.
- PK
Colleague, Jagiellonian University
Wojtek chaired the department for six years and ruled by asking questions. 'And what does the rock think?' he would say whenever we argued. It was the only chairmanship I have known where meetings ended early, because everyone was embarrassed to be wrong in front of a fern.
