Professor Franciszek Raszeja, before the outbreak of the war, was a head of the Department of Orthopedics at the University of Poznań. In September 1939, he was mobilised in the Polish Army and was ordered to evacuate the Łódź hospital to the East. He and his family arrived in Kowel, where he served as a commander of a war hospital.
After the end of the September Campaign, Professor Raszeja went to Warsaw and reported to the Ujazdowski hospital. After he registered at the Warsaw-Białystok Chamber of Doctors, he gained the right to practice on its territory. In December 1939, he was a head of the surgical ward at the Hospital of the Polish Red Cross on Smolna Street. He lived on Rozbrat Street with his wife Stanisława and two daughters.
Professor Raszeja was involved in teaching at the Underground University of Warsaw and also kept in touch with Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld who was in the Warsaw Ghetto. Together they organised blood donation campaigns for the Jewish population. Many times he consulted patients residing in the ghetto, for which he was asked by his assistant, a Jewish doctor Dr Kazimierz Pollak.
On 21 July 1942, Raszeja, once he received a pass from the German authorities, went to the ghetto to a flat on Chłodna Street to take care of sick Abe Gutnajer. There, in unclear circumstances, he was shot by the Gestapo from the SS-Sturmbannführer staff of Herman Hoefle. He was killed along with the patient, his family, Dr Pollak and a nurse. On the next day, his body was handed over to his wife. Professor Raszeja was buried at the Warsaw Powązki Cemetery.
