Hotel Polski
Hotel Polski (lit. Polish Hotel), opened in 1808, was a hotel in Śródmieście, Warsaw, Poland, at 29 Długa street.
In 1943, in the mop up operation following the liquidation of
In 1944 during the Warsaw Uprising the building housed a Polish insurgent stronghold called the "Holy Mother Redout", named after a painting located there.[1] The building was heavily damaged during the fighting and re-purposed following the war.
In 1965 the building was declared an
Hotel Polski affair
Around late 1941, two Jewish organizations from Switzerland and Polish diplomats, working with honorary consuls from certain South American countries, started sending documents to the Warsaw Ghetto, hoping to allow Jews in the ghettos to emigrate (as Germans were more lenient towards individuals who could prove they were nationals of neutral countries).[4] However, in many cases the holders of these affidavits and passports were already dead by the time those documents arrived in occupied Poland.[4] Many if not all of those documents were intercepted by the Gestapo, or otherwise ended up in the hands of Jewish Gestapo collaborators from Gestapo-operated Żagiew network (most prominently, Leon Skosowski and Adam Żurawin).[4][5][6]
The Warsaw Ghetto was liquidated by May 1943 but thousands of Jews survived in Warsaw, hiding outside the ghetto. The Germans and their Jewish collaborators came up with a plan to lure them out.[4][7] (Skosowski's involvement in the plan was very significant, and he has been referred to as a co-organizer of the Hotel Polski plan).[8] Another Jewish Gestapo collaborator involved in the Hotel Polski affair was the singer Wiera Gran.[5] Collaborators spread the rumor that Jews holding foreign passports of neutral countries were allowed to leave the General Government, and that documents from countries such as Paraguay, Honduras, El Salvador, Peru and Chile, in the names of Jews who were no longer alive, were sold (at high prices, estimated in extreme cases to equal over a million US dollars) in Hotel Royal at 31 Chmielna street, and later at Hotel Polski.[4][5][7][6][9] Unknown to the buyers, many such documents were improperly prepared or forged.[10]
Hotel Polski became a gathering place for Jews who hoped they would soon be allowed to leave Nazi-occupied Europe, as rumors also suggested it would be safe ground.
The Hotel Polski victims included poet Itzhak Katzenelson, Yiddish novelist Yehoshua Perle, and Jewish resistance leader Menachem Kirszenbaum[4] as well as, probably, Polish dancer Franceska Mann.
References
- ISBN 978-83-7388-096-2.
- ^ (in Polish) Zabytki_w_Polsce. Rejestr zabytkow. Zestawienia zabytkow nieruchomych. Mazowsze - Warszawa. Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictwa
- ^ "Unveiling A Plaque at the Hotel Polski – Tablet Magazine". www.tabletmag.com. 2013-04-18. Retrieved 2018-08-27.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "The 70th anniversary of the liquidation of Hotel Polski - Jewish Historical Institute". Jewish Historical Institute. 2013. Retrieved 2018-08-27.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4711-5263-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7864-0371-4.
- ^ ISBN 978-83-7388-096-2.
- ISBN 978-0-8143-3878-0.
- ISSN 1359-1371.
- ^ a b c d e f Hotel Polski at yadvashem.org
Further reading
- Agnieszka Haska (2008). "Studies: Adam Żurawin, a Hero of a Thousand Faces". Holocaust Studies and Materials (1): 123–146.
- Shulman, Abraham (1982). The Case of Hotel Polski. An Account of One of the Most Enigmatic Episodes of World War II. New York: Schocken. ISBN 978-0896040342.
- Agnieszka Haska, Jestem Żydem, chcę wejść. Hotel Polski w Warszawie, 1943, Instytut Filozofii i Socjologii PAN, 2006, ISBN 83-7388-096-8. (in Polish)
- Światło na aferę "Hotel Polski". In: Tadeusz Kur: Sprawiedliwość pobłażliwa. Proces kata Warszawy Ludwiga Hahna w Hamburgu. Warszawa: wydawnictwo MON, 1975, p. 399-430. OCLC 6648513. (in Polish)