Felix Kowalski

Name: Felix Kowalski
First Appeared: 9th November 1995
Last Appeared: 29th May 1997
Played by: Harry Landis

Felix Kowalski, born in 1929, was a Jewish-Polish immigrant who brought a touch of old-world charm to Walford when he arrived in November 1995 to open a barbershop. A Holocaust survivor, Felix had spent his life searching for his family, assuming they had perished in the Nazi concentration camps. Imagine his joy when he finally made contact with his surviving sister, a ray of hope after years of despair.

Felix’s arrival in Walford was met with some rather unfortunate misunderstandings. When he kindly offered to help Sonia Jackson with her trumpet playing, her stepfather Alan misinterpreted his intentions and warned him off, thinking Felix was a predator. The rumour mill went into overdrive, with Sonia and her friend Clare Tyler convinced that Felix had murdered his wife and buried her in the basement. Their daring exploration of his shop’s basement ended in disaster when Clare knocked herself out and Felix was found unbuttoning her clothing, leading to a mistaken-identity assault by Grant Mitchell. It was only then that everyone realized Felix was just a harmless old man with a passion for collecting butterflies.

The residents soon learned the heart-breaking story behind Felix’s butterfly collection. He had been living in Kraków during World War II when the Nazis came for his family. Felix escaped with a small box of butterflies, a passion inherited from his father who refused to leave them behind. While he believed his family had perished, Felix continued to collect butterflies in his father’s honour. Despite the initial rocky start, Felix befriended Walford’s senior residents like Jules Tavernier, Ethel Skinner, Blossom Jackson, and Nellie Ellis. His chess games with Jules at The Queen Vic were legendary, even if they sometimes ended in disaster, like when Jules fell asleep and scattered the pieces.

By late 1996, Felix discovered his sister had survived and was living in Israel. After reconnecting, he decided to leave Walford to be with her. Felix returned briefly in May 1997 to tie up loose ends and invited Blossom Jackson to Israel with him. They departed together, marking the end of Felix’s time in Albert Square. When Blossom returned for her great-grandson Billie Jackson’s funeral in October 2010, she revealed that she and Felix had reconciled but sadly, he had passed away from an illness five years prior.