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24.02.2023

Anna Stupnicka-Bando celebrated her 94th birthday

Since 2008, she has been the President of the Main Board of the Polish Association of Righteous Among the Nations. A Righteous herself, Anna Stupnicka-Bando jointly with her mother Janina Stupnicka saved 11-year-old Liliana Alter during the German occupation of Poland, for which they were both awarded the medal of the "Righteous Among the Nations" by the State of Israel in 1983.

Anna Stupnicka-Bando celebrated her 94th birthday
Anna Stupnicka-Bando celebrated her 94th birthday

Anna Stupnicka Bando was born on 23 February 1929 in Końskie in the Świętokrzyskie region. Her mother was a teacher. When the war broke out, 11-year-old Anna, together with her mother and grandmother, lived in Warsaw's Żoliborz district., where Janina Stupnicka dealt with the administration of tenement houses and residence registers. Her activities also involved visiting residential premises in the ghetto area. Janina used her pass, which entitled her to enter and leave the ghetto. Together with her daughter Anna, they smuggled food for the ghetto inhabitants.

In 1941,  Stupnicka and her daughter entered the ghetto, and then they smuggled 11-year-old Lilka Alter out of the ghetto. The girl was taken in, and lived with them in their apartment. Janina Stupnicka and Anna Stupnicka also aided Ryszard Grynberg and Mikołaj Borenstein. After the war, they remained in contact with the Jews they had saved. Anna Stupnicka became a neurologist. She was also active in commemorating Poles who saved Jews during German occupation.

The Polish Association of Righteous Among the Nations, operating since 1985, was established at the initiative of people awarded with a "Righteous Among the Nations" medal and diploma for saving Jews during World War II.

For 35 years, the Polish Association of Righteous Among the Nations has been taking great care to preserve the memory of German occupation in Poland, the Holocaust and people who, without expecting payment and risking  the lives of their relatives as well as their own, saved their fellow citizens of Jewish descent.

 The Polish Association of Righteous Among the Nations undertakes a number of initiatives in order to commemorate the heroic attitudes of Poles who, in an act of interpersonal solidarity, saved their Jewish neighbors from the extermination planned and carried out by the German occupiers. Upon the initiative of the Polish Association of Righteous Among the Nations, every year since 2016, a nationwide congress of the Righteous has been held. Apart from the Polish Righteous and their families, schoolchildren also take part in the events; it is a living history lesson for them. Thanks to the efforts of the association, the National Day of Remembrance of Poles Saving Jews under German Occupation was established on 24 March. This day has been celebrated since 2018.

Deputy President of the Institute of National Remembrance, Mateusz Szpytma, Ph.D. visited Anna Stupnica-Bando on her 94th birthday.


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