01.07.2020
COLLECTED CONTENT: Poles Saving Jews
Anna Koźmińska, the oldest living holder of the Righteous Among the Nations medal (granted individually), is celebrating her 101st birthday on 22 May 2020. Her story had remained unknown for decades. Risking their own lives, Anna Koźmińska and her foster mother Maria, hid four Jews, including providing long-term shelter for a boy – Abraham Jabłoński – during German occupation.
No less than 467 people were killed for aiding Jews – point out Aleksandra Namysło and Martyna Grądzka-Rejak, the author of the book “Repressions for helping Jews in the occupied Polish lands during the Second World War”.
Poles are the nation which has the biggest number of trees in YadVashem site. And yet not only in the world, but even in Poland, it was difficult for this fact to enter the collective consciousness. Perhaps people lacked individual human stories, which would show the heroism of individuals and even entire families, who risked the lives of their loved ones, including young children.
The monument commemorates the residents of Nawojowa and KamionkaWielka: Agnieszka and Jan Rumin, Ludwik Borek and Jakub Tokarz as well as the six members of the Jewish families of Kaufer, Neugröschl and Schreiber whom they had been hiding.
Mother Matylda Getter from the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary, risking her own life, saved several hundred Jewish children sentenced to extermination by the German occupiers. On 25 February at 8.00 a.m. the President of the IPN Dr.JarosławSzarek will pay tribute to Matylda Getter at her resting place in the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw (plot F / G, row 2, places 26–31, entrance from Powązkowska Street - IV).
On the occasion of the Polish National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German occupation the IPN has undertaken numerous activities. We invite you for the screenings of "Passports to Paraguay" in numerous Polish towns and villages, and for the exhibition "It is Deeds that Make the Man. Poles helping Jews during the Holocaust on the Eastern Borderlands of the Second Republic of Poland "and the ceremony of the unveiling of the plaque in homage to Mother Matilda Getter.
In connection with the Polish National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German Occupation we would like to refer back to an IPN interview with Eugeniusz Szylar, a Righteous from Markowa.
PASSPORTS TO PARAGUAY
On the occasion of the Polish National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German occupation the IPN has prepared an Internet screening of the IPN production ”Passports to Paraguay”. A year after its premiere, the film directed by RoberKaczmarek, will be available to viewers online.
As part of the exhibition entitled ″He, Who Saves One Life, Saves an Entire Universe. The Righteous Among the Nations and Their Stories”, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center, in collaboration with the Polish Institute in Moscow, is hosting a premiere screening of ″Passports to Paraguay”.
