Polish ZEGOTA was the only one organization to save Jews, saved 50000 Jews from Holocaust
Czyj jest ten strach? część Polskie obozy koncentracyjne? "Upside Down"
Czyj jest ten strach? część 2 / 2
Polskie obozy koncentracyjne? "Upside Down"
Polish Pilots of the RAF
A real hero - Witold Pilecki - A Volunteer for Auschwitz
Encouraged by Rabbi Israel Singer's, the General Secretary of the World Jewish Congress, statements in 1996 such as " If Poland does not satisfy Jewish claims, it will be publicly attacked and humiliated in the international forum." So it is a plan to deliberately slander Poland's name and manipulate the American public's opinion against Poles. It was permitted to slander Poles now.
Very beautiful. A GREAT HERO overlooked in the post War history.
Irena Sendler
Irena Sendler, a Catholic hero
ZEGOTA saved 50000 Jews from Holocaust 2/3
Polish ZEGOTA saved 50000 Jews from Holocaust 3/3
Would you risk your own life and your family's to save another human being ? Brave people. Thanks. ZEGOTA was the cryptonym for the clandestine underground organization in German-Nazi- occupied Poland(1939-1945) that provide assistance to the Jewish people. Irena Sendler(Irena Krzyzanowska,Irena Sendlerowa),Zofia Kossak,Wanda Krahelska, Julian Grobelny, Dobrowolski, Tadeusz Rek, Ferdynand Arczynski, Ignacy Barski, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Ewa Brzuska,(Granny) and many others brave people.Splendid
Irena Sendler: A Tribute
enigma code breakers
ZEGOTA saved 50000 Jews from Holocaust 1/3
Polish ZEGOTA saved 50000 Jews from Holocaust 3/3
Żegota" ([ʐε'gɔt̪a] (help·info)), also known as the "Konrad Żegota Committee,"[1] was a codename for the Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Żydom), an underground organization in German-occupied Poland from 1942 to 1945. It operated under the auspices of the Polish Government in Exile through the Government Delegation for Poland, in Warsaw. Żegota's express purpose was to aid the country's Jews and find places of safety for them in occupied Poland. Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where, throughout the war, there existed such a dedicated secret organization.[2]
[edit] Composition
The Council to Aid Jews, Żegota, was the continuation of an earlier secret organization set up for this purpose, called the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews (Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom), founded in September 1942 by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz ("Alinka") and made up of democratic as well as Catholic activists. Its members included Władysław Bartoszewski, later Polish Foreign Minister (1995, 2000). Within a short time, the Provisional Committee had 180 persons under its care, but was dissolved for political and financial reasons.[1]
Founded soon after, in October 1942, Żegota was the brainchild of Henryk Woliński of the Home Army (AK). From its inception, the elected General Secretary of Żegota was Julian Grobelny, an activist in prewar Polish Socialist Party. Its Treasurer, Ferdynand Arczyński, was a member of the Polish Democratic Party. They were also the two of its most active workers. Żegota was the only Polish organization in World War II run jointly by Jews and non-Jews from a wide range of political movements. Politically, the organization was formed by Polish and Jewish underground political parties.
Jewish organizations were represented on the central committee by Adolf Bermann and Leon Feiner. The member organizations were the Jewish National Committee (an umbrella group representing the Zionist parties) and the socialist General Jewish Labor Union. Both Jewish parties operated independently also, using money from Jewish organizations abroad channelled to them by the Polish underground. They helped to subsidize the Polish branch of the organization, whose funding from the Polish Government-in-Exile reached significant proportions only in the spring of 1944. On the Polish side, political participation included the Polish Socialist Party as well as Democratic Party (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne) and a small rightist Front Odrodzenia Polski. Notably, the main right-wing party, the National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe) refused to participate.
Kossack-Szczucka withdrew from participation from the onset. She had wanted Żegota to become an example of pure Christian charity and argued that the Jews had their own international charity organizations. She went on to act in the Social Self-Help Organization (Społeczna Organizacja Samopomocy - SOS) as a liaison between Żegota and Catholic convents and orphanages, where Catholic clergy hid many Jews.[3]
Żegota had around one hundred (100) sections. According to a letter by Adolf Berman, the Jewish Secretary of Żegota, dated February 26, 1977, there were other activists especially meritorious. He mentioned theatre artist Prof. Maria Grzegorzewski, psychologist Irena Solski, Janina Buchholtz-Bukolski*, educator Irena Sawicki*, scouting activist Dr. Ewa Rybicki, school principal Irena Kurowski, Prof. Stanislaw Ossowski and Prof. Maria Ossowski, zoo director Dr. Jan Zabinski* and his wife Antonina*, a writer, the unforgettable director of children's theatres Stefania Sempolowski, Jan Wesolowski*, Sylwia Rzeczycki*, Maria Laski, Maria Derwisz-Parnowski. Great merits had former Senator Zofia Rodziewicz, Zofia Latallo, Dr. Regina Fleszar and others. Beside the university educated people there were commoners like Waleria Malaczewski, Antonina Roguski, Jadwiga Leszczanin, Zofia Debicki*, tailor Stanislaw Michalski, farmers Kajszczak from Lomianki and Pawel Harmuszko, laborer Kazimierz Kuc and many others. – Those with the asterix (*) after their name have been recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations up to the end of 1999.[4]
[edit] Activities
Żegota helped save some 4,000 Polish Jews by providing food, medical care, relief money and false identity documents for those hiding on the so-called "Aryan" side of German-occupied Poland. Most of its activity took place in Warsaw. The Jewish National Committee had some 5,600 Jews under its care, and the Bund an additional 1,500, but the activities of the three organizations overlapped to a considerable degree. Between them, they were able to reach some 8,500 of the 28,000 Jews hiding in Warsaw, as well as perhaps 1,000 elsewhere in Poland.
Help in the form of money, food and medicines was organised by Żegota for the Jews in several forced labour camps in Poland as well.[2] Forged identity documents were procured for those hiding on the 'Aryan side' including financial aid. The escape of Jews from ghettos, camps and deportation trains occurred mostly spontaneously through personal contacts, and most of the help that was extended to Jews in the country was similarly personal in nature. Since Jews in hiding preferred to remain well-concealed, Żegota had trouble finding them. Its activities therefore did not develop on a larger scale until late in 1943.
The German occupying forces made concealing Jews a crime punishable by death for everyone living in a house where Jews were discovered. Over 700 Poles murdered by Germans as a result of helping and sheltering their Jewish neighbors were posthumously awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations.[5] They were only a small part of several thousand Poles reportedly executed by the Nazis for aiding Jews.[6] It is estimated that some 200,000 Poles were engaged in helping Jews even though the threat of death did act as a deterrent.
Żegota did play a large part in placing Jewish children with foster families, public orphanages and church institutions (orphanages and convents). The foster families had to be told that the children were Jewish, so that they could take appropriate precautions, especially in the case of boys. (Jewish boys, unlike Poles, were circumcised.) Żegota sometimes paid for the children's care. In Warsaw, Żegota's children department, headed by Irena Sendler, cared for 2,500 of the 9,000 Jewish children smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto.
Medical attention for the Jews in hiding was also made available through the Committee of Democratic and Socialist Physicians. Żegota had ties with many ghettos and camps. It also made numerous efforts to induce the Polish Government in Exile and the Delegatura to appeal to the Polish population to help the persecuted Jews.[7]
Postwar recognition
Many members of Żegota were memorialised in Israel in 1963 with a planting of a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous at Yad Vashem. Władysław Bartoszewski was present at the event.
Quotes
“Żegota is the story of extraordinary heroism amidst unique depravity – compelling in its human as well as historical dimensions. It is a particularly valuable addition to our understanding of the many facets of the Holocaust because Żegota as an organized effort was tantamount to ‘Schindler’s List’ multiplied a hundredfold.” ― Zbigniew Brzeziński
Polish Underground State
History of Poland
General:
^ a b Yad Vashem Shoa Resource Center, Zegota, page 4/34 of the Report.
^ a b 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 March 14 2008.
^ Gunnar S. Paulsson Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945 Published 2003 Yale University Press ISBN 0300095465
^ Anna Poraj, Polish Righteous, Those Who Risked Their Lives; see: Rajszczak family, 2004.
^ Chaim Chefer, Righteous of the World: Polish citizens killed while helping Jews During the Holocaust
^ Ron Riesenbach, The Story of the Survival of the Riesenbach Family
^ Paulsson (2002)
(Polish) various authors. in Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, Andrzej Friszke: „Żegota” Rada Pomocy Żydom 1942–1945. Warsaw: Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa. ISBN 83-91666-6-0.
(English) various authors (2003). in Joshua D. Zimmerman: Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Rutgers University Press, 336. ISBN 0813531586.
(English) MS Nechama Tec (1986). When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195051947.
(English) Tadeusz Piotrowski (1997). Poland's Holocaust. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3.
(English) Gunnar S. Paulsson. Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945. Yale: Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0300095465.
(English) Irene Tomaszewski; Tecia Werbowski (1994). Zegota: The Rescue of Jews in Wartime Poland. Montreal: Price-Patterson.
(English) Irene Tomaszewski; Tecia Werbowski (1994). Zegota: The Council to Aid Jews in Occupied Poland 1942-1945. Price-Patterson. ISBN 1896881157.
