A press conference on the occasion of the European Day of Remembrance for the Righteous will be held on March 6 at 11: 00 at the Janusz Kurtyka Educational Center in Warsaw (ul. Marszałkowska 21/25). The celebrations will include a presentation of the album "Poles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Recalling forgotten History", issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of the President of Poland, the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Institute of National Remembrance.
The conference will be attended by, among others, Undersecretary of State in the President's Office - Minister Wojciech Kolarski, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Deputy Minister Jan Dziedziczak, as well as Deputy President of the IPN, Dr Mateusz Szpytma, the founder and first director of the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in Markowa. Eugeniusz Szylar, who comes from Markowa, will be a guest of honour at the event. Szylar, one of the heroes of the previously mentioned publication, was involved in the rescue of a Jewish family - the Weltzs, during the war.
The bilingual album "Poles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Recalling forgotten History " presents portraits of Poles who have recently been awarded by the President of Poland Andrzej Duda for risking their own lives in order to save Jews from extermination by the Germans. Brief biographies and accounts of their heroic - because punishable by death - acts are complemented by a foreword by the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda and texts by, among others, Prof. Shevach Weiss - Holocaust survivor and former Israeli Ambassador to Poland, awarded the Order of the White Eagle, as well as, Deputy President of the IPN, Dr Mateusz Szpytma.
The date of the promotion of the album is not accidental - March 6 marks the European Day
of Remembrance for the Righteous, established on 10 May 2012 by the decision of the European Parliament on the initiative of the Italian Committee of the World Garden of the Righteous - Gariwo. The organisation calls for the worldwide establishment of gardens of the Righteous based on the model of the garden at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where those who rescued Jews during the Holocaust are honoured.