Every year on 27 January, Europe, and the world commemorate one of the most horrific events of the 20th century on the occasion of the Holocaust Memorial Day. This represents an opportunity to rediscover the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany all across Europe and their genocidal plan to exterminate the Jewish nation. 

In a recent speech given in the House of Commons, Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski said that apart from teaching younger generations about the Holocaust, which remains essential, he argued for the need to “educate children about the tremendous courage, bravery, and sacrifices of the Righteous Among the Nations.”  

Poland counts by far the most of them. Here are five famous examples of such heroes. Not all of them saved Jews exclusively, that’s beside the point. What matters here is their courageous stance worth looking up to. 

Eugeniusz Łazowski 

He was a Polish medical doctor who saved thousands of Jews during WW2 by creating a fake epidemic that played on German’s obsession with hygiene. He used his doctor status to take care of people travelling through a train station to conceal his medicine supply to numerous Jews in the Stalowa Wola ghetto. By providing such help to representatives of the nation so hated by the Germans, he jeopardised his own life. Any Pole being who helped his Jewish neighbours from escaping the Wehrmacht risked the death penalty.

Irena Sendler

As a member of the secret Żegota organisation aimed at saving Polish Jews during WW2, she organised a group of social workers to smuggle hundreds of children to safety between 1942 and 1943. She also made sure that these children would be welcomed, adopted and raised in non-Jewish families. Irena Sendler became legendary also for the way she proceeded. She designed false identity documents for the children she risked her life for and prevented the certain death awaiting them at the hands of the German invader.

Fr. Maksymilian Maria Kolbe 

Father Maksymilian Kolbe was a Polish Catholic priest who, in 1941, volunteered to die in place of a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek in the German death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. On a summer day in 1941, ten Polish inmates were sentenced to death from starvation. This was when Kolbe asked the permission of the German capo in charge of the selection if could take the place of one of the inmates, knowing that the latter had a wife and two children. Kolbe was eventually murdered by a lethal injection of carbolic acid by an SS officer. 

The Ulma family

The heroic Ulma family from Markowa was among the brutally murdered Poles who were hiding Jews. Józef and Wiktoria Ulma had six children. In 1944, at the time of their murder, Stanisława was 8 years old, Barbara 7, Władysław 5, Franciszek 4, Antoni 3, and Maria was one and a half years old. Moreover, at the time of her death, Wiktoria Ulma was 9 months pregnant. Eight Jews who were hiding there, including one child, were also murdered. They were: Saul Goldman, a cattle trader from Łańcut, with his sons unknown by name, and Gołda Grünfeld and Lea Didner, and a little daughter with an unknown name.

Witold Pilecki

In 1940, Captain Witold Pilecki literally let himself be captured by the Germans to infiltrate the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Once imprisoned, he created and coordinated a resistance movement that eventually included hundreds of inmates. He wrote detailed reports about the atrocious reality he was witnessing on a daily basis in order to alert the West about the nature of the German occupation. 

There are of course, many more. All of them deserve to be remembered, and their story needs to be told to our children. May their exemplary stance be an inspiration for all of us. 

Image: Muzeum Polaków Ratujących Żydów

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen

From the editor:

To date, 7,177 Christian Poles (more than any other country) have been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel, more than those of any other nation (to compare Germany just 641). Poles constitute the largest national group within the Righteous Among the Nations recognised by Yad Vashem. 27.921 people have been recognised so far. More than 25% of which were Polish. You can read more at the official Yad Vashem website. We need to remember that throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Poles risked their own lives – and the lives of their families – to rescue Jews from the Germans. This is a most impressive number considering the harsh punishment that threatened rescuers. Polish citizens were hampered by the most extreme conditions in all of German-occupied Europe. Occupied Poland was the only territory where the Germans decreed that any kind of help for Jews was punishable by death for the helper and their entire family. At least 50.000 Poles were executed by the Germans solely as a penalty for saving Jews.