know that from all the countries occupied by the Third Reich during the
Second World War (1939-1945) only in Poland any kind of help to a person
of Jewish faith or origin was punishable by death. This penalty was
widely announced. What is more this punishment was quite often imposed
not only on the rescuer, but also on his/her family, often on neighbors,
on -whole buildings in towns or villages in the countryside. The
Germans applied collective responsibility, trying to eliminate as many
Poles, and Slavic people in general, as possible, who were thus the next
most terrorized populations after the Jews and Gypsies. Close to
3 million Polish Christians, as many or even more than Polish Jews, lost
their lives, by execution, torture, starvation, or overwork in more than
2,000 prisons, forced labor and concentration camps.
The occupier persecuted
not only the intelligentsia, (educated classes) and opponents of the new
regime but all potential leaders, even simple peasants. Millions
were deported to Germany for forced labor. Massive expulsions of
Jews and Poles were undertaken from the Western provinces, incorporated
outright into the Third Reich, including the future Auschwitz, where ca.
80,000 Poles were killed, into the "General Government" (central Poland)
also under German administration. Military losses during the month
long September campaign amounted to 66,300 killed, over 133,700 wounded
and 587,000 Polish soldiers who became prisoners of war in the Third Reich.
Before that though, from Sept. 1 till Oct. 2, 1939 the Polish Army destroyed
ca. 33% of German armored cars and ca. 25% of German aviation. During
that time the Germans had to use more than twice the amount of ammunition,
artillery shells and bombs than 8 months later, to defeat French and English
troops in their 6 weeks conquest of France. See: Pogonowski, Iwo
Cyprian: “Poland, An illustrated History”. New York, Hippocrene Books,
Names of towns
and streets were changed to Germanic ones. Speaking Polish in public
in the incorporated provinces was prohibited. In the area of Gdansk
(renamed Danzig) that was punishable by death already from Sept. 4, 1939.
On Aug. 22, 1939, a week
before his attack on Poland, on September 1st, Hitler exhorted his nation:
"Kill without pity or mercy all men, women and children of Polish descent
or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need".
At least 50,000 up to maybe even 200,000 Polish children, deemed to have
"Germanic" features, have been forcibly taken to Germany to become Germans,
their birth records falsified. Only very few of them returned after
Click to enlarge
531 towns and villages were
burned, over 16 thousand persons, mostly Polish Christians, were killed
in 714 mass executions of which 60% by the Wehrmacht (German armed forces)
and 40% by the SS (Gestapo) and police. In Bydgoszcz the first victims
were boy scouts from 12 to 16 years old, shot in the marketplace.
All this happened in the first 8 weeks of the war. See: Lucas, Richard
C.: “The Forgotten Holocaust; The Poles under German Occupation”.
[Lexington] The University Press of Kentucky [c1986]
In the East, the Russians,
in connivance with the Germans (Hitler-Stalin secret pact of Aug. 23, 1939)
attacked Poland on September 17, 1939, when it was defending itself from
the Germans and occupied the eastern part of Poland until June 1941.
After the war they incorporated this territory into the Soviet Union and
maintained their troops in the rest of Poland for close to 50 years.
Massive killings followed, among them 21,857 officers, mostly reserve members
of the army (the intelligentsia) police and frontier guards, whose bodies
have been found later in Katyn, Miednoye, Kharkov, Tver and are in other
places still unknown. About 2 million have been deported to Siberia,
to Kazakhstan, etc. especially intelligentsia; half or more of them never
returned; thousands were killed in the fighting and over 452,000 became
POW's in Soviet Russia. Poland disappeared from the map, divided
in half by the 3rd Reich and the Soviet Union.
Click to enlarge
Out of its pre-war
population of 36 million it lost 22 %, more than any other country in Europe,
but what is even worse, it lost especially its educated classes, youth
and any elements, which could in the future oppose one or the other of
the two totalitarian regimes. See: Pogonowski, I. C. ”Poland;
a Historical Atlas”. [New York, Hippocrene Books, 1987] and The Selected
Bibliography” later on in this work.
According to the AB German
plan Poles were to become a people without education, slaves for the German
overlords. Schools above the primary, very rudimentary level were
closed, studying, keeping radios, or arms of any kind, almost any normal
occupation were prohibited under the threat of death.
In 1988, the public prosecutor,
Waclaw Bielawski, from the Main Commission for Investigation of Crimes
against the Polish Nation, issued a list of 1,181 names of Poles, out of
thousands, killed for helping Jews. The above named Main Commission
- The Institute of National Memory and The Polish Society for The Righteous
Among the Nations in Warsaw, published in 1997 the Part III in the series
“Those Who Helped; Polish Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust”.
It reduced those 1,181 names to only 704, by accepting only those, which
they could verify from 3-4 independent sources, difficult to find after
50 years. The publication contains also ca. 5,400 names of Poles,
who have been recognized, by the Israeli Yad Vashem Institute - The Holocaust
Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, as “Righteous
Among the Nations”. In total about 17,000 people of 34 nationalities
were similarly honored. In Western Europe the automatic death sentence
for help rendered to Jews did not exist and applying it to a whole family
or neighbors was unthinkable, as the reign of terror organized in Poland,
which was completely isolated, was unimaginable in the West.
Those who were
executed are not usually recognized as “Righteous”. They were murdered
generally with the Jews they harbored, so there were no Jewish witnesses,
while the Polish witnesses were not taken into consideration. Only
in very rare cases, 25 up to 1999, from the thousands killed, when a Jew
managed to escape the massacre and did make the proper deposition in an
Israeli consulate abroad or at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, (the State tribunal
of Israel) could the rescuers be recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations”.
From the list below you will find that entire families, from grandparents
as old as 90 years to infants less than one year have thus been put to
Click to enlarge
Saving Jews was very difficult,
as about 85% did not speak Polish or spoke it in a way distinct from the
Polish population and their appearance alone most often betrayed them.
As mentioned above many more cases of execution await still further verification.
Poland, under the communist
regime imposed on it by Soviet Russia from 1945 till 1989, was cut from
the West. Poles lost contact with the Jewish persons they saved,
most of whom left the country. Many of them changed their names not
only during the occupation, but also after going abroad. Besides,
it was dangerous to maintain correspondence with the West. Many of
the rescuers also changed their addresses, due to the massive migration
from the Eastern part of the country, incorporated into the Soviet Union,
to the “Regained Territories” from Germany in the Western part of the country.
Click to enlarge
The stories of
the rescuers are a shining example of the most selfless sacrifice, surpassing
in its heroism that of all the soldiers on the battle field, whom we commemorate
each November. In fact the soldier must fight; he cannot refuse.
He is sustained by the entire military organization and his efforts are
mostly limited to short moments of attack. He is paid and given all
the necessary means in service: food, uniform, arms, etc.
in Poland were alone, often deprived of their pre-war means of livelihood,
some thrown by the occupier out of their farms, factories, businesses,
offices and even homes, most of them living in dire poverty. All
were severely hampered in the possibility of earning a living. They
were under no legal or even moral obligation to risk their own lives and,
even more, that of their families and neighbors. Their help most
often lasted days and nights, weeks, months, even years, always in secret,
dreading a discovery.
Who of us would do it today, especially
in the above mentioned conditions?
Click to enlarge
THOSE WHO PAID WITH THEIR LIVES (704
NAMES): According to the III vol.
of "Those Who Helped" of 1997, by the Main Commission mentioned here.
Due to the omission of Polish
diacritical marks the alphabetical order is slightly different from that
in the English language.
LIST of ca. 5,400
POLES RECOGNIZED as "RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE
NATIONS", TITLE BESTOWED BY YAD
VASHEM OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL (AS OF
DEC. 31, 1999)
Due to the omission of
the Polish diacritical marks the alphabetical order of names is slightly
different from the English one. Notes about the names are based on the
Bibliography and on own documentation.
I hear this title and it
makes me think
About the people who saved
I ask and ask “Oh, my dear
Could I have done the same
In a sea of hate stood my
Could I shelter a foreign
son in my home?
Would I be willing along
with my family
Constantly be threatened
by certain evil?
Sleeples dark nights watching
out for noise
Hearing footsteps of certain
Would I be able to understand
Would I be ready for this,
could I walk like this
Among those who would betray
Not one day, not one week,
but so many years!
There a suspicious neighbor,
there a look,
and here a sound -
For that one - warm - brotherly
clasping of my hand...
Not having any pension -
not having anything for this.
Because a person to person
must be a people.
Because a people comes at
this time through -
So I ask you and ask you
once more -
Could I have done the same
if I was in their place?
It was they who went to war
It was they who made the
world a place for me.
It was they, the pillars,
the Righteous brother,
Who this day this world
is founded by.
For your courage, and for
your warm extended hand
In front of you the Righteous
We do not have the original
poem, written in Hebrew, only its translation into English, as it appears
in “Those who Helped” in 1996 and in 1997. It appears in Polish in
Grynberg, op. cit.