He was born in 1891 in Radom, studied medicine at the Jagiellonian University, later serving in the 1st Brigade of Legions. After the war he graduated from the Paris Military Academy, and then held various active and administrative positions in the Polish Army. He died in 1966.
       After Český Těąín and the Zaolzie region had been annexed to Poland, the Executive Board called a meeting of the Town Council in Cieszyn on 2 December 1938 with one point on the agenda. Mayor Halfar presented it in the form of a long historical introduction in which he described the tragedy which the division of Poland in 1920 had meant for Cieszyn and the whole of Cieszyn Silesia. He then briefly described the efforts of Cieszyn’s municipal authorities and all of its national groups; Polish, German and Jewish, in their positive work to eliminate the damage that the division of the town had brought on its citizens. He finished with a proposal, that in order to commemorate Cieszyn’s return to the bosom of the Republic the title of honorary citizen of Cieszyn should be awarded to General Władysław Bortnowski, the leader of the Śląsk Operational Group that occupied Zaolzie in the name of Poland. It was to be “in recognition and respect for the Polish Army which determined to unite the town of Cieszyn and Silesia”. The grounds of the proposal to award the honour to General Bortnowski were his outstanding contribution in uniting the Cieszyn Region and the town of Cieszyn, which was passed unanimously to applause.