Two 11-year-old boys who helped save a badly injured cat in southern Poland have been honoured at the Polish parliament, months after their response to the suffering animal first attracted widespread attention. Kacper and Viktor received the “Wrażliwe Serce” — “Sensitive Heart” — distinction during an animal-rights congress in Warsaw on Friday.
The boys’ story began in Łaziska Górne in Silesia, where they came across an exhausted female cat in July. Rather than walking past, they began organising help so the animal could be taken into veterinary care. Contemporary reporting described the cat as having a severely injured paw.
Their intervention subsequently attracted attention well beyond their local community.
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On 2 October, Kacper and Viktor were among those recognised during the VI Congress of Animal Rights, held in the Polish Senate in Warsaw.
The official Senate programme states that the “Wrażliwe Serce” distinctions were presented by Senate Marshal Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska and Deputy Sejm Marshal Dorota Niedziela.
Two children who decided not to walk away
The original rescue was striking largely because of its simplicity.
Kacper and Viktor saw an animal clearly requiring assistance and reacted. Reports from July said the boys organised help for the weakened cat, allowing her to reach a veterinarian rather than leaving her injured outdoors.
TVP reported on Friday that their determination helped save the cat, whose paw had been crushed. The pair were both 11 when the rescue took place.
Their actions generated a strongly positive reaction online at the time, with the story being widely shared as an example of young people showing compassion towards an animal in distress.
Now that response has been recognised at national level.
Honoured during animal-rights congress
Friday’s congress brought politicians, animal-welfare campaigners and specialists together in the Senate to discuss animal-protection legislation and practical responses to animals in danger.
The event was opened by Kidawa-Błońska, while Niedziela — who also chairs the Sejm’s committee dealing with animal protection — participated in a panel examining what has changed in Polish animal-welfare law and what issues remain unresolved.
The awards came at the beginning of the event.
For Kacper and Viktor, the recognition marked an unusual journey from encountering an injured cat on the streets of a Silesian town to being honoured inside Poland’s parliament.
And the reason for it was straightforward: when they found an animal that needed help, they chose to do something.
