139-481: Eiss Archive refers to the collection of documents and related memorabilia documenting the rescue by Polish diplomats of Jews threatened by the Holocaust during World War II. The archive is named after Chaim Yisroel Eiss , a Jewish Rabbi and activist who jointly set up the Ładoś Group . The archive is named after Chaim Eiss , a Jewish activist, who during World War II co-created the Ładoś Group (also known as
278-621: A Peenemünde launch, a Special Report 1/R, no. 242 , photographs, eight key V-2 parts, and drawings of the wreckage. Polish agents also provided reports on the German war production, morale, and troop movements. The Polish intelligence network extended beyond Poland and even beyond Europe: for example, the intelligence network organized by Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski in North Africa has been described as "the only [A]llied ... network in North Africa". The Polish network even had two agents in
417-529: A voivodeship (see Administrative division of Second Polish Republic ). There were three to five areas: Warsaw ( Obszar Warszawski , with some sources differentiating between left- and right-bank areas – Obszar Warszawski prawo- i lewobrzeżny ), Western ( Obszar Zachodni , in the Pomerania and Poznań regions), and Southeastern ( Obszar Południowo-Wschodni , in the Lwów area); sources vary on whether there
556-596: A communal level. In November 1942, the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police executed 20 villagers from Berecz in Wołyń Voivodeship for giving aid to Jewish escapees from the ghetto in Povorsk. According to postwar investigations, 568 Poles and Ukrainians from the town Przemyśl and its environs were murdered for attempting to help Jews. For example, Michał Gierula from the village of Łodzinka Górna
695-639: A controversial topic. As Polish–Soviet relations deteriorated, conflict grew between the Home Army and Soviet forces. The Home Army's allegiance to the Polish government-in-exile caused the Soviet government to consider the Home Army to be an impediment to the introduction of a communist -friendly government in Poland, which hindered cooperation and in some cases led to outright conflict. On 19 January 1945, after
834-666: A major resource; between the French capitulation and other Allied networks that were undeveloped at the time, it was even described as "the only [A]llied intelligence assets on the Continent". According to Marek Ney-Krwawicz [ pl ] , for the Western Allies, the intelligence provided by the Home Army was considered to be the best source of information on the Eastern Front. Home Army intelligence provided
973-640: A mass execution near Slonim . In Huta Stara near Buczacz , Polish Christians and the Jewish countrymen they protected were herded into a church by the Nazis and burned alive on 4 March 1944. Entire communities that helped to shelter Jews were annihilated, such as the now-extinct village of Huta Werchobuska near Złoczów , Zahorze near Łachwa , Huta Pieniacka near Brody . A number of Polish villages in their entirety provided shelter from Nazi apprehension, offering protection for their Jewish neighbors as well as
1112-403: A much higher number was involved. Paulsson wrote that, according to his research, an average Jew in hiding stayed in seven different places throughout the war. An average Jew who survived in occupied Poland depended on many acts of assistance and tolerance, wrote Paulsson. "Nearly every Jew that was rescued, was rescued by the cooperative efforts of dozen or more people," as confirmed also by
1251-638: A number of places from German control—for example, the Lublin area, where regional structures were able to set up a functioning government—they ultimately failed to secure sufficient territory to enable the government-in-exile to return to Poland due to Soviet hostility. The Home Army also sabotaged German rail- and road-transports to the Eastern Front in the Soviet Union. Richard J. Crampton estimated that an eighth of all German transports to
1390-646: A ruthless retaliation policy. On 15 October 1941, the death penalty was introduced by Hans Frank , governor of the General Government , to apply to Jews who attempted to leave the ghettos without proper authorization, and all those who "deliberately offer a hiding place to such Jews". The law was made public by posters distributed in all cities and towns, to instill fear. The death penalty was also imposed for helping Jews in Polish territories that became part of Reichskommisariat Ukraine and Reichskommisariat Ost , but without issuing any legal act. Similarly, in
1529-492: A sewer system unit. Many women participated in the Warsaw Uprising, particularly as medics or scouts; they were estimated to form about 75% of the insurgent medical personnel. By the end of the uprising, there were about 5,000 female casualties among the insurgents, with over 2,000 female soldiers taken captive; the latter number reported in contemporary press caused a "European sensation". Home Army Headquarters
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#17327902034501668-506: A special category, for they exemplified a courage, fortitude, and lofty humanitarianism unequalled in other occupied countries." Before World War II, 3,300,000 Jewish people lived in Poland – ten percent of the general population of some 33 million. Poland was the center of the European Jewish world. The Second World War began with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939; and, on 17 September, in accordance with
1807-453: The Kubuś armored car ). Even these light-infantry units were as a rule armed with a mixture of weapons of various types, usually in quantities sufficient to arm only a fraction of a unit's soldiers. Home Army arms and equipment came mostly from four sources: arms that had been buried by the Polish armies on battlefields after the 1939 invasion of Poland , arms purchased or captured from
1946-969: The Auschwitz concentration camp , although, for debated reasons , the Allies did not do so. The rescue efforts were aided by one of the largest resistance movements in Europe, the Polish Underground State and its military arm, the Home Army . Supported by the Government Delegation for Poland , the most notable effort dedicated to helping Jews was spearheaded by the Żegota Council, based in Warsaw , with branches in Kraków , Wilno , and Lwów . Polish rescuers were hampered by
2085-853: The Blue Police , and Jewish collaborators, Żagiew and Group 13 . In 1941, at the onset of Operation Barbarossa , the invasion of the Soviet Union, the main architect of the Holocaust , Reinhard Heydrich , issued his operational guidelines for the mass anti-Jewish actions carried out with the participation of local gentiles. Massacres of Polish Jews by the Ukrainian and Lithuanian auxiliary police battalions followed. Deadly pogroms were committed in over 30 locations across formerly Soviet-occupied parts of Poland, including in Brześć , Tarnopol , Białystok , Łuck , Lwów , Stanisławów , and in Wilno where
2224-662: The Eastern Front in the Soviet Union, destroying German supplies and tying down substantial German forces. It also fought pitched battles against the Germans, particularly in 1943 and in Operation Tempest from January 1944. The Home Army's most widely known operation was the Warsaw Uprising of August–October 1944. The Home Army also defended Polish civilians against atrocities by Germany's Ukrainian and Lithuanian collaborators . Its attitude toward Jews remains
2363-623: The Eiss Archive . Several organizations dedicated to saving Jews were created and run by Christian Poles with the help of the Polish Jewish underground . Among those, Żegota , the Council to Aid Jews, was the most prominent. It was unique not only in Poland, but in all of Nazi-occupied Europe, as there was no other organization dedicated solely to that goal. Żegota concentrated its efforts on saving Jewish children toward whom
2502-561: The Jedwabne pogrom close by, a minimum of 300 Polish Jews were burned alive in a barn set on fire by a group of Polish men under the German command. Wyrzykowska was honored as Righteous Among the Nations for her heroism, but left her hometown after liberation for fear of retribution. In Poland's cities and larger towns, the Nazi occupiers created ghettos that were designed to imprison
2641-708: The Katyn massacre of 1940. Until the major rising in 1944, the Home Army concentrated on self-defense (the freeing of prisoners and hostages, defense against German pacification operations) and on attacks against German forces. Home Army units carried out thousands of armed raids and intelligence operations, sabotaged hundreds of railway shipments, and participated in many partisan clashes and battles with German police and Wehrmacht units. The Home Army also assassinated prominent Nazi collaborators and Gestapo officials in retaliation against Nazi terror inflicted on Poland's civilian population; prominent individuals assassinated by
2780-523: The Lwów and Warsaw Ghettos , saving countless lives. Dr. Tadeusz Kosibowicz, director of the state hospital in Będzin , was sentenced to death for rescuing Jewish fugitives (but the sentence was commuted to camp imprisonment, and he survived the war). Those who took full responsibility for Jews' survival, perhaps especially, merit recognition as Righteous among the Nations . 6,066 Poles have been recognized by Israel 's Yad Vashem as Polish Righteous among
2919-646: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. By October 1939, the Second Polish Republic was split in half between two totalitarian powers. Germany occupied 48.4 percent of western and central Poland. Racial policy of Nazi Germany regarded Poles as " sub-human " and Polish Jews beneath that category, validating a campaign of unrestricted violence . One aspect of German foreign policy in conquered Poland
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#17327902034503058-466: The Red Army had cleared most Polish territory of German forces, the Home Army was disbanded. After the war, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, communist government propaganda portrayed the Home Army as an oppressive and reactionary force. Thousands of ex-Home Army personnel were deported to gulags and Soviet prisons, while other ex-members, including a number of senior commanders, were executed. After
3197-1073: The Warsaw Ghetto with social worker and Catholic nun , mother provincial of Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary - Matylda Getter . The children were placed with Polish families, the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary, or Roman Catholic convents such as the Little Sister Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary Conceived Immaculate at Turkowice and Chotomów . Sister Matylda Getter rescued between 250 and 550 Jewish children in different education and care facilities for children in Anin , Białołęka , Chotomów , Międzylesie , Płudy , Sejny , Vilnius and others. Getter's convent
3336-502: The Warsaw Uprising began, only a sixth of Home Army fighters in Warsaw were armed. Home Army members' attitudes toward Jews varied widely from unit to unit, and the topic remains controversial. The Home Army answered to the National Council of the Polish government-in-exile, where some Jews served in leadership positions (e.g. Ignacy Schwarzbart and Szmul Zygielbojm ), though there were no Jewish representatives in
3475-599: The fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, the portrayal of the Home Army was no longer subject to government censorship and propaganda. The Home Army originated in the Service for Poland's Victory ( Służba Zwycięstwu Polski ), which General Michał Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski set up on 27 September 1939, just as the coordinated German and Soviet invasions of Poland neared completion. Seven weeks later, on 17 November 1939, on orders from General Władysław Sikorski ,
3614-509: The penalty for aiding Jews was death . Hundreds of Polish and Jewish smugglers would come in and out the ghettos, usually at night or at dawn, through openings in the walls, tunnels and sewers or through the guardposts by paying bribes. The Polish Underground urged the Poles to support smuggling. The punishment for smuggling was death, carried out on the spot. Among the Jewish smuggler victims were scores of Jewish children aged five or six, whom
3753-693: The "London government" fully aware of the other's situation. After Germany started its invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union joined the Allies and signed the Anglo-Soviet Agreement on 12 July 1941. This put the Polish government in a difficult position since it had previously pursued a policy of "two enemies". Although a Polish–Soviet agreement was signed in August 1941, cooperation continued to be difficult and deteriorated further after 1943 when Nazi Germany publicised
3892-550: The "Polish Schindler ", saved 8,000 Polish Jews in Rozwadów from deportation to death camps by simulating a typhus epidemic. Dr. Tadeusz Pankiewicz gave out free medicines in the Kraków Ghetto , saving an unspecified number of Jews. Professor Rudolf Weigl , inventor of the first effective vaccine against epidemic typhus , employed and protected Jews in his Weigl Institute in Lwów ; his vaccines were smuggled into
4031-423: The 2000 book To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue , was sheltered by a Polish family in a village near Tarnobrzeg , where she survived the war despite the posting of a 200 deutsche mark reward by the Nazi occupiers for information on Jews in hiding. Chava Grinberg-Brown from Gmina Wiskitki recalled in a postwar interview that some farmers used the threat of violence against a fellow villager who intimated
4170-521: The Allied armed effort much more effectively than subversive and guerilla activities". The Home Army also conducted psychological warfare . Its Operation N created the illusion of a German movement opposing Adolf Hitler within Germany itself. The Home Army published a weekly Biuletyn Informacyjny (Information Bulletin), with a top circulation (on 25 November 1943) of 50,000 copies. Sabotage
4309-675: The Allies with information on German concentration camps and the Holocaust in Poland (including the first reports on this subject received by the Allies ), German submarine operations, and, most famously, the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket . In one Project Big Ben mission ( Operation Wildhorn III ; Polish cryptonym , Most III , "Bridge III"), a stripped-for-lightness RAF twin-engine Dakota flew from Brindisi , Italy , to an abandoned German airfield in Poland to pick up intelligence prepared by Polish aircraft-designer Antoni Kocjan , including 100 lb (45 kg) of V-2 rocket wreckage from
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4448-583: The Allies; 48 per cent of all reports received by the British secret services from continental Europe between 1939 and 1945 came from Polish sources. The total number of those reports is estimated at 80,000, and 85 per cent of them were deemed to be high quality or better. The Polish intelligence network grew rapidly; near the end of the war, it had over 1,600 registered agents. The Western Allies had limited intelligence assets in Central and Eastern Europe. The extensive in-place Polish intelligence network proved
4587-829: The Archive were acquired by the Polish Ministry of Culture from a private collector in Israel in 2018. They were displayed in the Polish embassy in Switzerland in January 2019, and later were transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland. The collection includes eight forged Paraguayan passports as well as correspondence between persons to be rescued and Polish diplomats and Jewish organisations, photos of Jews seeking to obtain
4726-598: The Bernese Group), a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists led by the Polish ambassador to Switzerland in Bern , Aleksander Ładoś . During the war the group developed a system of illegal production of Latin American passports aimed at saving European Jews from The Holocaust . The documents are said to have made their way to Israel with one of Eiss’ descendants after World War II. The documents that form
4865-595: The Department of the Righteous at Yad Vashem , Mordecai Paldiel , wrote that the widespread revulsion among the Polish people at the murders being committed by the Nazis was sometimes accompanied by an alleged feeling of relief at the disappearance of Jews. Israeli historian Joseph Kermish (born 1907) who left Poland in 1950, had claimed at the Yad Vashem conference in 1977, that the Polish researchers overstate
5004-448: The Eastern Front were destroyed or substantially delayed due to Home Army operations. The Polish Resistance carried out dozens of attacks on German commanders in Poland, the largest series being that codenamed " Operation Heads ". Dozens of additional assassinations were carried out, the best-known being: As a clandestine army operating in an enemy-occupied country and separated by over a thousand kilometers from any friendly territory,
5143-759: The Family of Mary with rescuing more than 750 Jews. Historians have shown that in numerous villages, Jewish families survived the Holocaust by living under assumed identities as Christians with full knowledge of the local inhabitants who did not betray their identities. This has been confirmed in the settlements of Bielsko ( Upper Silesia ), in Dziurków near Radom , in Olsztyn Village [ pl ] near Częstochowa , in Korzeniówka near Grójec , in Łaskarzew , Sobolew , and Wilga triangle, and in several villages near Łowicz . Some officials in
5282-832: The GG Register) Jews leaving the Jewish Quarter without permission will incur the death penalty . According to this decree, those knowingly helping these Jews by providing shelter, supplying food, or selling them foodstuffs are also subject to the death penalty This is a categorical warning to the non-Jewish population against: 1) Providing shelter to Jews, 2) Supplying them with Food, 3) Selling them Foodstuffs. Polish Jews were
5421-624: The German high command itself. The researchers who produced the first Polish–British in-depth monograph on Home Army intelligence ( Intelligence Co-operation Between Poland and Great Britain During World War II: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee , 2005) described contributions of Polish intelligence to the Allied victory as "disproportionally large" and argued that "the work performed by Home Army intelligence undoubtedly supported
5560-475: The German occupation as well as frequent betrayal by the local population. Any kind of help to Jews was punishable by death , for the rescuer and their family, and would-be rescuers moved in an environment hostile to Jews and their protection, exposed to the risk of blackmail and denunciation by neighbours. According to Mordecai Paldiel , "The threats faced by would-be rescuers, both from the Germans and blackmailers alike, make us place Polish rescuers of Jews in
5699-452: The German shot at the ghetto exits and near the walls. While communal rescue was impossible under these circumstances, many Polish Christians concealed their Jewish neighbors. For example, Zofia Baniecka and her mother rescued over 50 Jews in their home between 1941 and 1944. Paulsson, in his research on the Jews of Warsaw, documented that Warsaw's Polish residents managed to support and conceal
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5838-449: The Germans (the forest people are estimated at some 40 groups, numbering 1,200–4,000 persons in early 1943, but their numbers grew substantially during Operation Tempest ). The third, largest group were "part-time members": sympathisers who led "double lives" under their real names in their real homes, received no payment for their services, and stayed in touch with their undercover unit commanders but were seldom mustered for operations, as
5977-419: The Germans and their allies, arms clandestinely manufactured by the Home Army itself, and arms received from Allied air drops. From arms caches hidden in 1939, the Home Army obtained 614 heavy machine guns, 1,193 light machine guns, 33,052 rifles, 6,732 pistols, 28 antitank light field guns, 25 antitank rifles, and 43,154 hand grenades. However, due to their inadequate preservation, which had to be improvised in
6116-454: The Germans in 1943, was Stefan Rowecki ( nom de guerre " Grot ", "Spearhead"). Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski (Tadeusz Komorowski, nom de guerre " Bór ", "Forest") commanded from July 1943 until his surrender to the Germans when the Warsaw Uprising was suppressed in October 1944. Leopold Okulicki , nom de guerre Niedzwiadek ("Bear"), led the Home Army in its final days. The Home Army
6255-472: The Germans were especially cruel. Tadeusz Piotrowski (1998) gives several wide-range estimates of a number of survivors including those who might have received assistance from Żegota in some form including financial, legal, medical, child care, and other help in times of trouble. The subject is shrouded in controversy according to Szymon Datner , but in Lukas ' estimate about half of those who survived within
6394-700: The Government Delegation for Poland. Traditionally, Polish historiography has presented the Home Army interactions with Jews in a positive light, while Jewish historiography has been mostly negative; most Jewish authors attribute the Home Army's hostility to endemic antisemitism in Poland . More recent scholarship has presented a mixed, ambivalent view of Home Army–Jewish relations. Both "profoundly disturbing acts of violence as well as extraordinary acts of aid and compassion" have been reported. In an analysis by Joshua D. Zimmerman , postwar testimonies of Holocaust survivors reveal that their experiences with
6533-456: The Holocaust to the Western powers, after having personally visited the Warsaw Ghetto and a Nazi concentration camp. Another crucial role was played by Witold Pilecki , who was the only person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz (where he would spend three and a half years) to organize a resistance on the inside and to gather information on the atrocities occurring there to inform
6672-615: The Holocaust. By January 2022, 7,232 people in Poland have been recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations . The Polish government-in-exile informed the world of the extermination of the Jews on June 9, 1942, following a report from the Jewish Labour Bund leadership smuggled out of the occupied Poland by Home Army couriers. The Polish government-in-exile, together with Jewish groups, pleaded for American and British forces to bomb train tracks leading to
6811-419: The Home Army faced unique challenges in acquiring arms and equipment, though it was able to overcome these difficulties to some extent and to field tens of thousands of armed soldiers. Nevertheless, the difficult conditions meant that only infantry forces armed with light weapons could be fielded. Any use of artillery, armor or aircraft was impossible (except for a few instances during the Warsaw Uprising, such as
6950-590: The Home Army had closer ties and ideological similarities. Antoni Chruściel , commander of the Home Army in Warsaw, ordered the entire armory of the Wola district transferred to the ghetto. In January 1943 the Home Army delivered a larger shipment of 50 pistols, 50 hand grenades, and several kilograms of explosives, along with a number of smaller shipments that carried a total of 70 pistols, 10 rifles, 2 hand machine guns, 1 light machine gun, ammunition, and over 150 kilograms of explosives. The number of supplies provided to
7089-576: The Home Army in its own secret workshops, and by Home Army members working in German armaments factories. In this way the Home Army was able to procure submachine guns (copies of British Stens , indigenous Błyskawicas and KIS ), pistols ( Vis ), flamethrowers, explosive devices, road mines, and Filipinka and Sidolówka hand grenades . Hundreds of people were involved in the manufacturing effort. The Home Army did not produce its own ammunition, but relied on supplies stolen by Polish workers from German-run factories. The final source of supply
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#17327902034507228-509: The Home Army in order to survive in hiding, but Jews serving in the Home Army were the exception rather than the rule. Most Jews in hiding could not pass as ethnic Poles and would have faced deadly consequences if discovered. In February 1942, the Home Army Operational Command's Office of Information and Propaganda set up a Section for Jewish Affairs, directed by Henryk Woliński . This section collected data about
7367-402: The Home Army included Elżbieta Zawacka , an underground courier who was sometimes called the only female Cichociemna . Grażyna Lipińska [ pl ] organised an intelligence network in German-occupied Belarus in 1942–1944. Janina Karasiówna [ pl ] and Emilia Malessa were high-ranking officers described as "holding top posts" within the communication branch of
7506-406: The Home Army included Igo Sym (1941) and Franz Kutschera (1944). In February 1942, when the Home Army was formed from the Armed Resistance, it numbered around 100,000 members. Less than a year later, at the start of 1943, it had reached a strength of around 200,000. In the summer of 1944, when Operation Tempest began, the Home Army reached its highest membership: estimates of membership in
7645-402: The Home Army planned to use them only during a planned nationwide rising. The Home Army was intended to be representative of the Polish nation, and its members were recruited from most parties and social classes. Its growth was largely based on integrating scores of smaller resistance organisations into its ranks; most of the other Polish underground armed organizations were incorporated into
7784-589: The Home Army were mixed even if predominantly negative. Jews trying to seek refuge from Nazi genocidal policies were often exposed to greater danger by open resistance to German occupation. Members of the Home Army were named Righteous Among the Nations for risking their lives to save Jews, examples include Jan Karski , Aleksander Kamiński , Stefan Korboński , Henryk Woliński , Jan Żabiński , Władysław Bartoszewski , Mieczysław Fogg , Henryk Iwański , and Jan Dobraczyński . However, Polish historian Ewa Kołomańska noted that many individuals associated with
7923-470: The Home Army, involved in rescuing the Jews, did not receive the Righteous title. A Jewish partisan detachment served in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising , and another in Hanaczów [ pl ] . The Home Army provided training and supplies to the Warsaw Ghetto 's Jewish Combat Organization . It is likely that more Jews fought in the Warsaw Uprising than in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, some fought in both. Thousands of Jews joined, or claimed to join,
8062-460: The Home Army, though they retained varying degrees of autonomy. The largest organization that merged into the Home Army was the leftist Peasants' Battalions ( Bataliony Chłopskie ) around 1943–1944, and parts of the National Armed Forces ( Narodowe Siły Zbrojne ) became subordinate to the Home Army. In turn, individual Home Army units varied substantially in their political outlooks, notably in their attitudes toward ethnic minorities and toward
8201-427: The Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland . New trends in historical research challenged widely shared assumptions about wartime Polish behaviour and highlighted the contribution of home-grown antisemitism and the local police to the extermination of Polish Jews. Polish rescuers faced threats from unsympathetic neighbours, Polish-German Volksdeutsche , ethnic Ukrainian pro-Nazis, blackmailers called szmalcowniks ,
8340-447: The Jewish resistance would be futile. This reasoning was the norm among the Allies , who believed that the Holocaust could only be halted by a significant military action. The Home Army provided the Warsaw Ghetto with firearms, ammunition, and explosives, but only after it was convinced of the eagerness of the Jewish Combat Organization ( Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa , ŻOB) to fight, and after Władysław Sikorski 's intervention on
8479-482: The Jews were murdered along with the Poles in the Ponary massacre at a ratio of 3-to-1. National minorities routinely participated in pogroms led by OUN-UPA , YB , TDA and BKA . Local participation in the Nazi German "cleansing" operations included the Jedwabne pogrom of 1941. The Einsatzkommandos were ordered to organize them in all eastern territories occupied by Germany. Ethnic Poles assisted Jews by organized as well as by individual efforts. Food
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#17327902034508618-436: The Jews. The fact remains that its leadership did not want to do so." Rowecki's attitudes shifted in the following months as the brutal reality of the Holocaust became more apparent, and the Polish public support for the Jewish resistance increased. Rowecki was willing to provide Jewish fighters with aid and resources when it contributed to "the greater war effort", but had concluded that providing large quantities of supplies to
8757-484: The Nations for saving Jews during the Jewish Holocaust, making Poland the country with the highest number of such Righteous. The number of Poles who rescued Jews from the Nazi German persecution would be hard to determine in black-and-white terms and is still the subject of scholarly debate. According to Gunnar S. Paulsson , the number of rescuers that meet Yad Vashem 's criteria is perhaps 100,000 and there may have been two or three times as many who offered minor help;
8896-544: The Nazi Germans was insignificant. Connelly nonetheless criticized the same population for its indifference to the Jewish plight. This occurred in the context of Nazi terror combined with the inadequacy of food rations, greed and corruption, which wrecked traditional values. Poles helping Jews faced unparalleled dangers not only from the German occupiers but also from their own ethnically diverse countrymen including Polish-German Volksdeutsche , and Polish Ukrainians , many of whom were anti-Semitic and morally disoriented by
9035-644: The Nazis and Władysław Szpilman , the Jewish Polish musician whose wartime experiences were chronicled in his memoir The Pianist and the film of the same title identified 30 Poles who helped him to survive the Holocaust. Meanwhile, Father John T. Pawlikowski from Chicago, referring to work by other historians, speculated that claims of hundreds of thousands of rescuers struck him as inflated. Likewise, Martin Gilbert has written that under Nazi regime, rescuers were an exception, albeit one that could be found in towns and villages throughout Poland. Efforts at rescue were encumbered by several factors. The threat of
9174-409: The Nazis with the eight Jews they hid. The entire Wołyniec family in Romaszkańce was massacred for sheltering three Jewish refugees from a ghetto. In Maciuńce , for hiding Jews, the Germans shot eight members of Józef Borowski's family along with him and four guests who happened to be there. Nazi death squads carried out mass executions of the entire villages that were discovered to be aiding Jews on
9313-403: The Organization's behalf. Zimmerman describes the supplies as "limited but real". Jewish fighters of the Jewish Military Union ( Żydowski Związek Wojskowy , ŻZW) received from the Home Army, among other things, 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, 21 submachine guns, 30 rifles, 50 pistols, and over 400 grenades. Some supplies were also provided to the ŻOB, but less than to ŻZW with whom
9452-412: The Poles receiving no aid from the approaching Red Army, the Germans eventually defeated the insurrectionists and burned the city, quelling the Uprising on 2 October 1944. Other major Home Army city risings included Operation Ostra Brama in Wilno and the Lwów Uprising . The Home Army also prepared for a rising in Kraków but aborted due to various circumstances. While the Home Army managed to liberate
9591-461: The Poles to regain their national sovereignty, particularly after Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 and the Soviets joined the Western Allies in the war against Germany. In the end, despite all efforts, most Home Army forces had inadequate weaponry. In 1944, when the Home Army was at its peak strength (200,000–600,000, according to various estimates), the Home Army had enough weaponry for only about 32,000 soldiers." On 1 August 1944, when
9730-506: The Poles who helped them were killed, sent to camps, punished with imprisonment or a fine, and sometimes released. There was no rule in punishing, and Poles who helped Jews were not sure whether the punishment would be only imprisonment or execution of them and their entire family, they had to assume the worst. For example, the Ulma family (father, mother and six children) of the village of Markowa near Łańcut – where many families concealed their Jewish neighbors – were executed jointly by
9869-497: The Polish Jewish community was destroyed during World War II, coupled with stories about Polish collaborators, has contributed, especially among Israelis and American Jews, to a lingering stereotype that the Polish population has been passive in regard to, or even supportive of, Jewish suffering. However, modern scholarship has not validated the claim that Polish antisemitism was irredeemable or different from contemporary Western antisemitism; it has also found that such claims are among
10008-624: The Polish underground Home Army . The entire village of Mulawicze near Bielsk Podlaski took responsibility for the survival of an orphaned nine-year-old Jewish boy. Different families took turns hiding a Jewish girl at various homes in Wola Przybysławska near Lublin , and around Jabłoń near Parczew many Polish Jews successfully sought refuge. Impoverished Polish Jews, unable to offer any money in return, were nonetheless provided with food, clothing, shelter and money by some small communities; historians have confirmed this took place in
10147-564: The Polish-Jewish historian Szymon Datner . Paulsson notes that during the six years of wartime and occupation, the average Jew sheltered by the Poles had three or four sets of false documents and faced recognition as a Jew multiple times. Datner explains also that hiding a Jew lasted often for several years thus increasing the risk involved for each Christian family exponentially. Polish-Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Hanna Krall has identified 45 Poles who helped to shelter her from
10286-637: The Service for Poland's Victory was superseded by the Armed Resistance ( Związek Walki Zbrojnej ), which in turn, a little over two years later, on 14 February 1942, became the Home Army. During that time, many other resistance organisations remained active in Poland, although most of them, merged with the Armed Resistance or with its successor, the Home Army, and substantially augmented its numbers between 1939 and 1944. The Home Army
10425-512: The Soviets. The largest group that completely refused to join the Home Army was the pro-Soviet, communist People's Army ( Armia Ludowa ), which numbered 30,000 people at its height in 1944. Home Army ranks included a number of female operatives. Most women worked in the communications branch, where many held leadership roles or served as couriers. Approximately a seventh to a tenth of the Home Army insurgents were female. Notable women in
10564-711: The West (the Silent Unseen ). The basic organizational unit was the platoon, numbering 35–50 people, with an unmobilized skeleton version of 16–25; in February 1944, the Home Army had 6,287 regular and 2,613 skeleton platoons operational. Such numbers made the Home Army not only the largest Polish resistance movement, but one of the two largest in World War II Europe. Casualties during the war are estimated at 34,000 to 100,000, plus some 20,000 –50,000 after
10703-548: The Western Allies about the fate of the Jewish population . Home Army reports from March 1943 described crimes committed by the Germans against the Jewish populace. AK commander General Stefan Rowecki estimated that 640,000 people had been murdered in Auschwitz between 1940 and March 1943, including 66,000 ethnic Poles and 540,000 Jews from various countries (this figure was revised later to 500,000). The Home Army started carrying out death sentences for szmalcowniks in Warsaw in
10842-411: The achievements of the Żegota organization (including members of Żegota themselves, along with venerable historians like Prof. Madajczyk ), but his assertions are not supported by the listed evidence. Paulsson and Pawlikowski wrote that wartime attitudes among some of the populace were not a major factor impeding the survival of sheltered Jews, or the work of the Żegota organization. The fact that
10981-529: The aid for refugees from other villages and escapees from the ghettos. Postwar research has confirmed that communal protection occurred in Głuchów near Łańcut with everyone engaged, as well as in the villages of Główne , Ozorków , Borkowo near Sierpc , Dąbrowica near Ulanów , in Głupianka near Otwock , and Teresin near Chełm . In Cisie near Warsaw, 25 Poles were caught hiding Jews; all were killed and
11120-626: The annexed lands which included a program to resettle ethnic Germans from the Baltic states and other regions onto farms, ventures and homes formerly owned by the expelled Poles including Polish Jews. The response of the Polish majority to the Jewish Holocaust covered an extremely wide spectrum, often ranging from acts of altruism at the risk of endangering their own and their families lives, through compassion, to passivity, indifference, blackmail, and denunciation . That response has been
11259-408: The awarded prize. The vast majority of these individuals joined the criminal underworld after the German occupation and were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, both Jews and the Poles who were trying to save them. According to one reviewer of Paulsson, with regard to the extortionists, "a single hooligan or blackmailer could wreak severe damage on Jews in hiding, but it took
11398-675: The camp and genocide to the Polish resistance headquarters in Warsaw through the resistance network he organized in Auschwitz. In March 1941, Pilecki's reports were being forwarded via the Polish resistance to the British government in London, but the British government refused AK reports on atrocities as being gross exaggerations and propaganda of the Polish government. Home Army The Home Army ( Polish : Armia Krajowa , pronounced [ˈarmja kraˈjɔva] ; abbreviated AK )
11537-421: The changing borders of Poland were helped by Żegota . The number of Jews receiving assistance who did not survive the Holocaust is not known. Perhaps the most famous member of Żegota was Irena Sendler , who managed to successfully smuggle 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto . Żegota was granted over 5 million dollars or nearly 29 million zł by the government-in-exile (see below), for
11676-557: The chaos of the September Campaign, most of the guns were in poor condition. Of those that had been buried in the ground and had been dug up in 1944 during preparations for Operation Tempest, only 30% were usable. Arms were sometimes purchased on the black market from German soldiers or their allies, or stolen from German supply depots or transports. Efforts to capture weapons from the Germans also proved highly successful. Raids were conducted on trains carrying equipment to
11815-425: The country. He writes that "not the informing or the indifference, but the existence of such individuals is one of the most remarkable features of Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust." Nechama Tec , who herself survived the war aided by a group of Catholic Poles, noted that Polish rescuers worked within an environment that was hostile to Jews and unfavorable to their protection, in which rescuers feared both
11954-508: The crucial confrontation that, it was assumed, would determine the fate of Poland. ... [However,] to the Home Army, the Jews were not a part of 'our nation' and ... action to defend them was not to be taken if it endangered [the Home Army's] other objectives." He added that "it is probably unrealistic to have expected the Home Army—which was neither as well armed nor as well organized as its propaganda claimed—to have been able to do much to aid
12093-440: The death penalty for aiding Jews and the limited ability to provide for the escapees were often responsible for the fact that many Poles were unwilling to provide direct help to a person of Jewish origin. This was exacerbated by the fact that the people who were in hiding did not have official ration cards and hence food for them had to be purchased on the black market at high prices. According to Emmanuel Ringelblum in most cases
12232-536: The death penalty. Nearly every Catholic institution in Poland looked after a few Jews, usually children with forged Christian birth certificates and an assumed or vague identity. In particular, convents of Catholic nuns in Poland (see Sister Bertranda ), played a major role in the effort to rescue and shelter Polish Jews, with the Franciscan Sisters credited with the largest number of Jewish children saved. Two thirds of all nunneries in Poland took part in
12371-586: The desire to betray her safety. Polish-born Israeli writer and Holocaust survivor Natan Gross, in his 2001 book Who Are You, Mr. Grymek? , told of a village near Warsaw where a local Nazi collaborator was forced to flee when it became known he reported the location of a hidden Jew. Nonetheless, there were cases where Poles who saved Jews were met with a different response after the war. Antonina Wyrzykowska from Janczewko village near Jedwabne managed to successfully shelter seven Jews for twenty-six months from November 1942 until liberation. Sometime earlier, during
12510-402: The disapproval of their neighbors and reprisals that such disapproval might bring. Tec also noted that Jews, for many complex and practical reasons, were not always prepared to accept assistance that was available to them. Some Jews were pleasantly surprised to have been aided by people whom they thought to have expressed antisemitic attitudes before the invasion of Poland. Former Director of
12649-452: The documents, and a list of thousands of individuals, Polish Jews in ghettos in occupied Poland, who corresponded with the rescue activists. The documents in the Eiss archive helped establish that 330 people survived the Holocaust due to the actions of the Ładoś Group. Despite their efforts, 387 individuals corresponding with the group were identified as Holocaust victims even though they held
12788-464: The early 1970s. In the villages of Ożarów , Ignaców , Szymanów , and Grodzisko near Leżajsk , the Jewish children were cared for by Catholic convents and by the surrounding communities. In these villages, Christian parents did not remove their children from schools where Jewish children were in attendance. Irena Sendler head of children's section Żegota (the Council to Aid Jews) organisation cooperated very closely in saving Jewish children from
12927-430: The end of the German occupation, a general armed rising to be prosecuted until victory. Home Army plans envisioned, at war's end, the restoration of the pre-war government following the return of the government-in-exile to Poland. The Home Army, though in theory subordinate to the civil authorities and to the government-in-exile, often acted somewhat independently, with neither the Home Army's commanders in Poland nor
13066-455: The enemy, our country has been the scene of a terrible, planned massacre of the Jews. This mass murder has no parallel in the annals of mankind; compared to it, the most infamous atrocities known to history pale into insignificance. Unable to act against this situation, we, in the name of the entire Polish people, protest the crime being perpetrated against the Jews; all political and public organizations join in this protest. The Polish government
13205-480: The entire population" assisted Jews: Rudka , Jedlanka , Makoszka , Tyśmienica , and Bójki . Historians have documented that a dozen villagers of Mętów near Głusk outside Lublin sheltered Polish Jews. In some well-confirmed cases, Polish Jews who were hidden, were circulated between homes in the village. Farmers in Zdziebórz near Wyszków sheltered two Jewish men by taking turns. Both of them later joined
13344-440: The first half and summer of 1944 range from 200,000, through 300,000, 380,000 and 400,000 to 450,000–500,000, though most estimates average at about 400,000; the strength estimates vary due to the constant integration of other resistance organisations into the Home Army, and that while the number of members was high and that of sympathizers was even higher, the number of armed members participating in operations at any given time
13483-610: The forged passports. The fate of 430 others known to have communicated with the group is not known. Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust Concerning: the Sheltering of Escaping Jews. There is a need for a reminder, that in accordance with Paragraph 3 of the decree of 15 October 1941, on the Limitation of Residence in General Government (page 595 of
13622-471: The front, as well as on guardhouses and gendarmerie posts. Sometimes weapons were taken from individual German soldiers accosted in the street. During the Warsaw Uprising, the Home Army even managed to capture several German armored vehicles, most notably a Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer light tank destroyer renamed Chwat [ pl ] and an armored troop transport SdKfz 251 renamed Grey Wolf [ pl ] . Arms were clandestinely manufactured by
13761-421: The ghetto resistance has been sometimes described as insufficient, as the Home Army faced a number of dilemmas which forced it to provide no more than limited assistance to the Jewish resistance, such as supply shortages and the inability to arm its own troops, the view (shared by most of the Jewish resistance) that any wide-scale uprising in 1943 would be premature and futile, and the difficulty of coordinating with
13900-466: The internally divided Jewish resistance, coupled with the pro-Soviet attitude of the ŻOB. During the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Home Army units tried to blow up the Ghetto wall twice, carried out diversionary actions outside the Ghetto walls, and attacked German sentries sporadically near the Ghetto walls. According to Marian Fuks , the Ghetto uprising would not have been possible without supplies from
14039-462: The local Jewish populations. The food rations allocated by the Germans to the ghettos condemned their inhabitants to starvation. Smuggling of food into the ghettos and smuggling of goods out of the ghettos, organized by Jews and Poles, was the only means of subsistence of the Jewish population in the ghettos. The price difference between the Aryan and Jewish sides was large, reaching as much as 100%, but
14178-567: The majority "were passively protective." In an article published in the Journal of Genocide Research , Hans G. Furth estimated that there may have been as many as 1,200,000 Polish rescuers. Władysław Bartoszewski estimated that between 1 and 3 percent of the Polish population was actively involved in rescue efforts; Marcin Urynowicz estimates that a minimum of from 500,000 to over a million Poles actively tried to help Jews. The lower number
14317-560: The money that Poles accepted from Jews they helped to hide, was taken not out of greed, but out of poverty which Poles had to endure during the German occupation. Israel Gutman has written that the majority of Jews who were sheltered by Poles paid for their own up-keep, but thousands of Polish protectors perished along with the people they were hiding. Several scholars such as Richard C. Lukas and John Connelly have stated that, unlike in Western Europe, Polish collaboration with
14456-474: The negative consequences of the hostility towards Jews by extremists advocating their eventual removal from Poland. Meanwhile, Alina Cala in her study of Jews in Polish folk culture argued also for the persistence of traditional religious antisemitism and anti-Jewish propaganda before and during the war both leading to indifference. Steinlauf however notes that despite these uncertainties, Jews were helped by countless thousands of individual Poles throughout
14595-482: The organisation. Wanda Kraszewska-Ancerewicz [ pl ] headed the distribution branch. Several all-female units existed within the AK structures, including Dysk [ pl ] , an entirely female sabotage unit led by Wanda Gertz , who carried out assassinations of female Gestapo informants in addition to sabotage. During the Warsaw Uprising , two all-female units were created—a demolition unit and
14734-552: The other villagers helped, "if only to provide a meal." Another farm couple, Alfreda and Bolesław Pietraszek , provided shelter for Jewish families consisting of 18 people in Ceranów near Sokołów Podlaski , and their neighbors brought food to those being rescued. Two decades after the end of the war, a Jewish partisan named Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identified the following villages in the Parczew - Ostrów Lubelski area where "almost
14873-543: The part of the Polish government in exile residing in Great Britain. The government often publicly expressed outrage at German mass murders of Jews. In 1942, the Directorate of Civil Resistance , part of the Polish Underground State , issued the following declaration based on reports by the Polish underground: For nearly a year now, in addition to the tragedy of the Polish people, which is being slaughtered by
15012-471: The primary victims of the Nazi Germany -organized Holocaust in Poland . Throughout the German occupation of Poland , Jews were rescued from the Holocaust by Polish people , at risk to their lives and the lives of their families. According to Yad Vashem , Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons identified as rescuing Jews during
15151-507: The relief payments to Jewish families in Poland. Besides Żegota , there were smaller organizations such as KZ-LNPŻ, ZSP, SOS and others (along the Polish Red Cross ), whose action agendas included help to the Jews. Some were associated with Żegota . The Roman Catholic Church in Poland provided many persecuted Jews with food and shelter during the war, even though monasteries gave no immunity to Polish priests and monks against
15290-514: The rescue, in all likelihood with the support and encouragement of the church hierarchy. These efforts were supported by local Polish bishops and the Vatican itself. The convent leaders never disclosed the exact number of children saved in their institutions, and for security reasons the rescued children were never registered. Jewish institutions have no statistics that could clarify the matter. Systematic recording of testimonies did not begin until
15429-864: The same percentage of Jews as did residents in other European cities under Nazi occupation. Ten percent of Warsaw's Polish population was actively engaged in sheltering their Jewish neighbors. It is estimated that the number of Jews living in hiding on the Aryan side of the capital city in 1944 was at least 15,000 to 30,000 and relied on the network of 50,000–60,000 Poles who provided shelter, and about half as many assisting in other ways. Poles living in Lithuania supported Chiune Sugihara producing false Japanese visas. The refugees arriving to Japan were helped by Polish ambassador Tadeusz Romer . Henryk Sławik issued false Polish passports to about 5000 Jews in Hungary. He
15568-469: The senior Polish priesthood maintained the same theological attitude of hostility toward the Jews which was known from before the invasion of Poland. After the war ended, some convents were unwilling to return Jewish children to postwar institutions that asked for them, and at times refused to disclose the adoptive parents' identities, forcing government agencies and courts to intervene. Lack of international effort to aid Jews resulted in political uproar on
15707-425: The silent passivity of a whole crowd to maintain their cover." He also notes that "hunters" were outnumbered by "helpers" by a ratio of one to 20 or 30. Michael C. Steinlauf writes that not only the fear of the death penalty was an obstacle limiting Polish aid to Jews, but also antisemitism, which made many individuals uncertain of their neighbors' reaction to their attempts at rescue. Number of authors have noted
15846-472: The situation of the Jewish population, drafted reports, and sent information to London. It also centralized contacts between Polish and Jewish military organizations. The Home Army also supported the Relief Council for Jews in Poland ( Żegota ) as well as the formation of Jewish resistance organizations . From 1940 onward, the Home Army courier Jan Karski delivered the first eyewitness account of
15985-399: The stereotypes that comprise anti-Polonism . The presenting of selective evidence in support of preconceived notions have led some popular press to draw overly simplistic and often misleading conclusions regarding the role played by Poles at the time of the Holocaust. In an attempt to discourage Poles from helping the Jews and to destroy any efforts of the resistance, the Germans applied
16124-401: The subject of intense historical and political controversy since the 1980s, when the received notion of the Polish people standing united and unwavering against the German occupier was criticised by Israeli historians, such as Israel Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski , and by Polish intellectuals and historians, such as Jan Błoński and in 2000 Jan T. Gross 's book, Neighbors: The Destruction of
16263-457: The summer of 1943. Antony Polonsky observed that "the attitude of the military underground to the genocide is both more complex and more controversial [than its approach towards szmalcowniks ]. Throughout the period when it was being carried out, the Home Army was preoccupied with preparing for ... [the moment when] Nazi rule in Poland collapsed. It was determined to avoid premature military action and to conserve its strength (and weapons) for
16402-503: The territories incorporated directly into the German Reich, the death penalty for helping Jews was not introduced, but it was imposed locally during the liquidation of the ghettos. Initially, the death penalty was imposed sporadically and only on Jews. Until the summer of 1942, Poles who helped them were fined or imprisoned. The situation changed during the liquidation of the ghettos, when the caught Jews were immediately killed, and
16541-478: The village was burned to the ground as punishment. The forms of protection varied from village to village. In Gołąbki , the farm of Jerzy and Irena Krępeć provided a hiding place for as many as 30 Jews; years after the war, the couple's son recalled in an interview with the Montreal Gazette that their actions were "an open secret in the village [that] everyone knew they had to keep quiet" and that
16680-468: The villages of Czajków near Staszów as well as several villages near Łowicz , in Korzeniówka near Grójec , near Żyrardów , in Łaskarzew , and across Kielce Voivodship . In tiny villages where there was no permanent Nazi military presence, such as Dąbrowa Rzeczycka , Kępa Rzeczycka and Wola Rzeczycka near Stalowa Wola , some Jews were able to openly participate in the lives of their communities. Olga Lilien, recalling her wartime experience in
16819-490: The war (casualties and imprisonment). The Home Army was intended to be a mass organisation that was founded by a core of prewar officers. Home Army soldiers fell into three groups. The first two consisted of "full-time members": undercover operatives, living mostly in urban settings under false identities (most senior Home Army officers belonged to this group); and uniformed (to a certain extent) partisans, living in forested regions ( leśni , or "forest people"), who openly fought
16958-469: The war. Air drops were infrequent. Deliveries from the west were limited by Stalin 's refusal to let the planes land on Soviet territory, the low priority placed by the British on flights to Poland; and the extremely heavy losses sustained by Polish Special Duties Flight personnel. Britain and the United States attached more importance to not antagonizing Stalin than they did to the aspirations of
17097-467: The war. There were people, the so-called szmalcownicy ("shmalts people" from shmalts or szmalec , slang term for money), who blackmailed the hiding Jews and Poles helping them, or who turned the Jews to the Germans for a reward. Outside the cities there were peasants of various ethnic backgrounds looking for Jews hiding in the forests, to demand money from them. There were also Jews turning in other Jews and ethnic Poles in order to alleviate hunger with
17236-532: Was Allied air drops , which was the only way to obtain more exotic, highly useful equipment such as plastic explosives and antitank weapons such as the British PIAT . During the war, 485 air-drop missions from the West (about half of them flown by Polish airmen) delivered some 600 tons of supplies for the Polish resistance. Besides equipment, the planes also parachuted in highly qualified instructors ( Cichociemni ), 316 of whom were inserted into Poland during
17375-476: Was a Northeastern Area (centered in Białystok – Obszar Białystocki ) or whether Białystok was classified as an independent area ( Okręg samodzielny Białystok ). In 1943 the Home Army began recreating the organization of the prewar Polish Army, its various units now being designated as platoons, battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, and operational groups . The Home Army supplied valuable intelligence to
17514-634: Was coordinated by the Union of Retaliation and later by Wachlarz and Kedyw units. Major Home Army military and sabotage operations included: The largest and best-known of the Operation Tempest battles, the Warsaw Uprising, constituted an attempt to liberate Poland's capital and began on 1 August 1944. Polish forces took control of substantial parts of the city and resisted the German-led forces until 2 October (a total of 63 days). With
17653-440: Was divided geographically into regional branches or areas ( obszar ), which were subdivided into subregions or subareas ( podokręg ) or independent areas ( okręgi samodzielne ). There were 89 inspectorates ( inspektorat ) and 280 (as of early 1944) districts ( obwód ) as smaller organisational units. Overall, the Home Army regional structure largely resembled Poland's interwar administration division, with an okręg being similar to
17792-555: Was divided into five sections, two bureaus and several other specialized units: The Home Army's commander was subordinate in the military chain of command to the Polish Commander-in-Chief ( General Inspector of the Armed Forces ) of the Polish government-in-exile and answered in the civilian chain of command to the Government Delegation for Poland. The Home Army's first commander, until his arrest by
17931-463: Was hanged for offering shelter to three Jews and three partisans. In Przemyśl Michał Kruk and several other people in were executed on September 6, 1943 for the assistance they had rendered to the Jews. For helping Jews, Father Adam Sztark [ pl ] and the CSIC Maria Wołowska [ pl ] and Ewa Noiszewska [ pl ] were murdered on 19 December 1942 in
18070-634: Was killed by Germans in 1944. The Ładoś Group also called the Bernese Group ( Aleksander Ładoś , Konstanty Rokicki , Stefan Ryniewicz , Juliusz Kühl , Abraham Silberschein , Chaim Eiss ) was a group of Polish diplomats and Jewish activists who elaborated in Switzerland a system of illegal production of Latin American passports aimed at saving European Jews from Holocaust . Ca 10.000 Jews received such passports, of which over 3000 have been saved. The group efforts are documented in
18209-416: Was located at the entrance to the Warsaw Ghetto . When the Nazis commenced the clearing of the ghetto in 1941, Getter took in many orphans and dispersed them among Family of Mary homes. As the Nazis began sending orphans to the gas chambers, Getter issued fake baptismal certificates, providing the children with false identities. The sisters lived in daily fear of the Germans. Michael Phayer credits Getter and
18348-408: Was loyal to the Polish government-in-exile and to its agency in occupied Poland, the Government Delegation for Poland ( Delegatura ). The Polish civilian government envisioned the Home Army as an apolitical, nationwide resistance organisation. The supreme command defined the Home Army's chief tasks as partisan warfare against the German occupiers, the re-creation of armed forces underground and, near
18487-500: Was offered to Polish Jews or left in places Jews would pass on their way to forced labor . Other Poles directed Jewish ghetto escapees to Poles who could help them. Some Poles sheltered Jews for only one or a few nights; others assumed full responsibility for their survival, fully aware that the Germans punished by summary execution those (as well as their families) who helped Jews. A special role fell to Polish physicians who saved thousands of Jews. Dr. Eugeniusz Łazowski , known as
18626-504: Was proposed by Teresa Prekerowa who claimed that between 160,000 and 360,000 Poles assisted in hiding Jews, amounting to between 1% and 2.5% of the 15 million adult Poles she categorized as "those who could offer help." Her estimation counts only those who were involved in hiding Jews directly. It also assumes that each Jew who hid among the non-Jewish populace stayed throughout the war in only one hiding place and as such had only one set of helpers. However, other historians indicate that
18765-458: Was smaller—as little as one per cent in 1943, and as many as five to ten per cent in 1944 —due to an insufficient number of weapons. Home Army numbers in 1944 included a cadre of over 10,000–11,000 officers, 7,500 officers-in-training (singular: podchorąży ) and 88,000 non-commissioned officers (NCOs). The officer cadre was formed from prewar officers and NCOs, graduates of underground courses, and elite operatives usually parachuted in from
18904-530: Was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II . The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the aftermath of the German and Soviet invasions in September 1939. Over the next two years, the Home Army absorbed most of the other Polish partisans and underground forces. Its allegiance
19043-573: Was the first to inform the Western Allies about the Holocaust, although early reports were often met with disbelief, even by Jewish leaders themselves, and then, for much longer, by Western powers. Witold Pilecki was a member of the Polish Armia Krajowa (AK) resistance, and the only person who volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz . As an agent of the underground intelligence, he began sending numerous reports about
19182-585: Was to prevent its ethnically diverse population from uniting against Germany. The Nazi plan for Polish Jews was one of concentration, isolation, and eventually total annihilation in the Holocaust also known as the Shoah . Similar policy measures toward the Polish Catholic majority focused on the murder or suppression of political, religious, and intellectual leaders as well as the Germanization of
19321-483: Was to the Polish government-in-exile in London, and it constituted the armed wing of what came to be known as the Polish Underground State . Estimates of the Home Army's 1944 strength range between 200,000 and 600,000. The latter number made the Home Army not only Poland's largest underground resistance movement but, along with Soviet and Yugoslav partisans, one of Europe's largest World War II underground movements. The Home Army sabotaged German transports bound for
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