President pays tribute to Poles who helped Jews in WWII
Polish President Andrzej Duda has paid tribute to all those who lost their lives while aiding Jews during World War II.
In 2018, on Duda's initiative, Poland's parliament established March 24 as the National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under the German occupation. This official public holiday was instituted to commemorate the day in 1944 when the Germans executed the Ulma family. Wiktoria and Jozef Ulma hid eight Jews in their home, for which in March 1944 they were executed together with their six children and the Jewish fugitives. In 2023 the Polish Ulma family was beatified by Pope Francis.
On Monday, Duda attended a ceremony in the north-central city of Torun, where he unveiled a plaque commemorating three more Poles who saved Jews from the Holocaust.
During the event he said that Poland was the only country during World War Two where Nazi Germans punished any form of assisting Jews by killing the helpers and their families.
"Under the German occupation, Poles found themselves in a difficult situation, perhaps even in a sense trapped," Duda said.
"On the one hand, their Jewish neighbours were being taken away and murdered before their eyes, on the other hand, very quickly the Germans decided to introduce radical measures, and above all the death penalty for helping Jews," he added.
Duda said that the fact that helping Jews was punishable by death in Poland "not only for those who helped directly, but also for their closest relatives, their entire family," was "something exceptional in the whole of Nazi German occupied Europe" and something that did not happen in Western Europe.
The Monday ceremony was held in the Chapel of Remembrance situated in the Temple of Our Lady the Star of New Evangelisation and St. John Paul II in Torun, the only memorial of its kind in the world.
The chapel is decorated with granite plaques with the names of Poles who risked their lives and the lives of their family members to shelter Jews during World War II. Next to the sanctuary is the Park of Remembrance, where the names of 33,000 Poles who saved Jews and survived World War II are placed on pedestals.
Acting Israeli Deputy Ambassador to Poland Bosmat Baruch said during the ceremony that the construction of the chapel and the memorial park in Torun are extremely important to ensure that the tragedy of World War II is never forgotten.
"Today we commemorate those who during the "great darkness had the courage to stand up against evil," she said. (PAP)
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