Polish Righteous Among the Nations
Medals and diplomas awarded at a ceremony in the Polish Senate on 17 April 2012 | |
Righteous Among the Nations |
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By country |
The citizens of Poland have the highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Yad Vashem as the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, for saving Jews from extermination during the Holocaust in World War II. There are 7,232 (as of 1 January 2022[update]) Polish men and women conferred with the honor,[1] over a quarter of the 28,217 recognized by Yad Vashem in total.[2] The list of Righteous Among the Nations is not comprehensive and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Poles concealed and aided tens of thousands of their Polish-Jewish neighbors.[3] Many of these initiatives were carried out by individuals, but there also existed organized networks of Polish resistance which were dedicated to aiding Jews – most notably, the Żegota organization.
In
Activities
Before
As it became apparent that, not only were conditions in the ghettos terrible (hunger, diseases, executions), but that the Jews were being singled out for extermination at the
It is not exactly known how many Jews were helped by Żegota, but at one point in 1943 it had 2,500 Jewish children under its care in
In numerous instances, Jews were
Risk
Warning of death penalty for supporting Jews | |
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During the
Anyone from the Aryan side caught assisting those on the Jewish side in obtaining food was subject to the death penalty.[19][20] The usual punishment for aiding Jews was death, applied to entire families.[4][21][22] Polish rescuers were fully conscious of the dangers facing them and their families, not only from the invading Germans, but also from blackmailers (see: szmalcowniks) within the local, multi-ethnic population and the Volksdeutsche.[23] The Nazis implemented a law forbidding all non-Jews from buying from Jewish shops under the maximum penalty of death.[24]
Gunnar S. Paulsson, in his work on history of the Warsaw Jews during the Holocaust, has demonstrated that, despite the much harsher conditions, Warsaw's Polish residents managed to support and conceal the same percentage of Jews as did the residents of cities in safer countries of Western Europe, where no death penalty for saving them existed.[25]
Numbers
There are 7,232 officially recognized Polish Righteous – the highest count among nations of the world. At a 1979 international historical conference dedicated to Holocaust rescuers, J. Friedman said in reference to Poland: "If we knew the names of all the noble people who risked their lives to save the Jews, the area around Yad Vashem would be full of trees and would turn into a forest."[3] Hans G. Furth holds that the number of Poles who helped Jews is greatly underestimated and there might have been as many as 1,200,000 Polish rescuers.[3]
Father
See also
- Stanisława Leszczyńska: a Polish midwife at the Auschwitz concentration camp
- History of the Jews in 20th-century Poland
- Holocaust in Poland
- "Polish death camp" controversy
Notes
- ^ "Righteous Among the Nations Honored by Yad Vashem" (PDF).
- ^ "Names of Righteous by Country | www.yadvashem.org". www.yadvashem.org. Retrieved 29 September 2018.
- ^ .
Thousands of helping acts were done on impulse, on the spur of the moment, lasting no longer than a few seconds to a few hours: such as a quick warning from mortal danger, giving some food or water, showing the way, sheltering from cold or exhaustion for a few hours. None of these acts can be recorded in full detail, with persons and names counted; yet without them the survival of thousands of Jews would not have been possible.[228] If these people are anywhere typical of non-Jews under the Nazis, the percentage of 20 percent [rescuers] represents a huge number of many millions. I was truly astonished when I read these numbers...[230]
- ^ a b “Righteous Among the Nations” by country at Jewish Virtual Library
- ^ Węgrzynek, Hanna; Zalewska, Gabriela. "Demografia | Wirtualny Sztetl". sztetl.org.pl. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
- ^ a b Franciszek Piper. "The Number of Victims" in Gutman, Yisrael & Berenbaum, Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Indiana University Press, 1994; this edition 1998, p. 62.
- ^ Martin Gilbert. The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust. Macmillan, 2003. pp 101.
- ISBN 0-8135-3158-6
- ^ Andrzej Sławiński, Those who helped Polish Jews during WWII. Translated from Polish by Antoni Bohdanowicz. Article on the pages of the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association. Last accessed on 14 March 2008.
- ISBN 0-7864-0371-3.
- Instytut Pamięci Narodowej–Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 2004), p.325. (in Polish)
- ^ a b The Righteous and their world. Markowa through the lens of Józef Ulma, by Mateusz Szpytma, Institute of National Remembrance
- ^ Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Wystawa „Sprawiedliwi wśród Narodów Świata”– 15 czerwca 2004 r., Rzeszów. "Polacy pomagali Żydom podczas wojny, choć groziła za to kara śmierci – o tym wie większość z nas." (Exhibition "Righteous among the Nations." Rzeszów, 15 June 2004. Subtitled: "The Poles were helping Jews during the war – most of us already know that.") Last actualization 8 November 2008. (in Polish)
- ISBN 83-7257-103-1(in Polish)
- ^ Kalmen Wawryk, To Sobibor and Back: An Eyewitness Account (Montreal: The Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies, and The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, 1999), pp.66–68, 71.
- ^ Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1969, pp.533–34.
- ^ Grądzka-Rejak & Namysło 2022, p. 103.
- ^ Grądzka-Rejak & Namysło 2022, p. 103-104.
- ^ Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: Poland
- KTAV Publishing House Inc.
- ISBN 0-7818-0604-6. Page 99.
- ^ Unveiling the Secret City Archived 12 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine H-Net Review: John Radzilowski
- ^ Margaret Monahan Hogan, ed. (2011). "Remembering the Response of the Catholic Church" (PDF file, direct download 1.36 MB). History 1933 – 1948. What we choose to remember. University of Portland. pp. 85–97. Retrieved 21 June 2013.
- ^ John T. Pawlikowski. Polish Catholics and the Jews during the Holocaust: Heroism, Timidity, and Collaboration. In: Joshua D. Zimmerman, Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, Rutgers University Press, 2003.
Bibliography
- Grądzka-Rejak, Martyna; Namysło, Aleksandra (2022). "Prawodawstwo niemieckie wobec Polaków i Żydów na terenie Generalnego Gubernatorstwa oraz ziem wcielonych do III Rzeszy. Analiza porównawcza" [German legislation towards Poles and Jews in the General Government and the lands incorporated into the Third Reich. Comparative analysis]. In Domański, Tomasz (ed.). Stan badań nad pomocą Żydom na ziemiach polskich pod okupacją niemiecką (in Polish). OCLC 1325606240.
References
- Polish Righteous at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews
- Anna Poray, "Saving Jews: Polish Righteous. Those Who Risked Their Lives," at the Wayback Machine (archived 6 February 2008) with photographs and bibliography, 2004. List of Poles recognized as "Righteous among the Nations" by Israel's Yad Vashem (31 December 1999), with 5,400 awards including 704 of those who paid with their lives for saving Jews.
- Piotr Zychowicz, Do Izraela z bohaterami: Wystawa pod Tel Awiwem pokaże, jak Polacy ratowali Żydów Archived 10 April 2015 at the Wayback Machine, Rp.pl, 18 November 2009 (in Polish)