PM tributes Polish rescuers of Jews
PM Mateusz Morawiecki on Sunday in the locality of Sadowne, central Poland, paid homage to a local family killed by the Germans for aiding Jews during World War II. Sunday also marked the Day of Remembrance of Poles who saved Jews during WWII (Mar. 24).
In the winter of 1943 Leon Lubkiewicz, a baker in Sadowne, his wife Marianna and their son Stefan were killed by Nazi Germans for providing bread to hiding Jews. In his commemoration of the events, Morawiecki stressed that "one loaf of bread often sent whole families to a martyr's death."
"Often one loaf of bread sufficed to save life. But one loaf of bread often also sent whole Polish families, whole Jewish families, to their death. To a martyr's death. That's the kind of hell the Germans erected on this earth," the PM said.
Referring to accusations of Polish compliance in the Holocaust, Morawiecki called such allegations "slander," and recalled that numerous sources spoke about the positive role Poles played during World War II. He also observed, that for Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland Germans meant death and Poles a chance of survival.
"Because a Jew who encountered a German became a dead Jew, and a Jew who encountered a Pole had a chance to survive. And all the Jews who survived the second world war owed it to a greater or lesser degree to those loaves of bread, and the shelter given them by their Polish neighbours," Morawiecki said.
In a letter to commemoration participants, President Andrzej Duda wrote that the Day of Remembrance of Poles Who Saved Jews During WWII was a tribute to all who helped Jews escape the Holocaust.
"(It is - PAP) a tribute to those, who in those inhuman times tried to act against the Holocaust in the name of the highest values, although this posed the threat of immediate death," the president wrote, observing that Poles who risked aiding Jews during the second world war were "the heroes of our nation and the whole of humanity."
A written address from Duda was also read out at Day of Remembrance of Poles Who Saved Jews During WWII observances in Warsaw.
The Day of Remembrance of Poles Who Saved Jews During WWII was instituted on March 24 to commemorate the day in 1944 when Nazi Germans executed an entire Polish family in the village of Markowa, southern Poland, for sheltering Jews. Wiktoria and Jozef Ulma hid eight Jews in their home during World War Two, for which in March 1944 they were executed together with their six children and the Jewish fugitives. At the time of her execution, Wiktoria Ulma was eight months pregnant; her eldest daughter was eight years old.
In 1995, Józef and Wiktoria were posthumously awarded with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. The medals are awarded by the Jerusalem-based Yad Vashem Institute to individuals and families who risked their own lives and the lives of their loved ones to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. In 2010, late President Lech Kaczyński distinguished them with the Commander's Cross of the Polonia Restituta Order.
On March 17, 2016, the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II, the first Polish museum of Poles rescuing Jews, was opened in Markowa.
The beatification process of the whole family is under way.
In 2018, Poland's parliament established March 24 as the National Day of Remembrance of Poles who saved Jews from the Holocaust during World War Two.
Also on Sunday observations of the 75th anniversary of the Ulmas' execution were held in the Ulma Family Museum in Markowa. (PAP)
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