Yom Ha'Shoah 2021 - Documentary Film "THE RESCUED" ("OCALENI”) is Now Online

Joanna Król, Mateusz Szczepaniak / English translation: Andrew Rajcher, 9 April 2021

In Israel, Yom Ha'Shoah, namely Holocaust Remembrance Day, is commemorated on 27th Nissan (April or May). On that day, sirens sound throughout the country and public life pauses to pay tribute to Jews who died during the Holocaust in German-occupied Europe. With the participation of Israeli state authorities, official ceremonies take place at Yad Vashem - the Institute for the Remembrance of Martyrs and Heroes of the Holocaust - on Mount Herzl in the Jerusalem Forest. It is the second largest Holocaust commemoration , after International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

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The stars of this film are Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust, elderly people living in Poland and in Israel. The creators of the film, Karolina Dzięciołowska and Joanna Król, follow the footsteps of POLIN Museum volunteers, Janina Goldhar and Jadwiga Rytlowa, who document the lives of Survivors in Israel. Together with them, we learn of the stories of these herioes. We visit Danuta Dąbrowska, Sara Gliksman and Prof. Szalom Lindenbaum. We also learn about the volunteers themselves and about the rescuers - Aldona Lipszyc, Maria Palester, Józef and Lucyna Fink, Doroty Kuc and Rozalia Kalabiś.

The motivator behind the film "OCALENI” was Jadwiga Rytlowa. During the Holocaust, her mother, Aldona Lipszyc, protected her own children who, bcause of their Jewish origins, were condemed to extermination by Nazi Germany. She also extended help to Jewish strangers..

Over many years, for the Polish Righteous portal, Jadwiga Rytlowa, together with her friend, Janiną Goldhar, documented and explored to the stories of other Jews who survived the Holocaust and of the Poles who helped them. Jadwiga was a POLIN Museum volunteer until her passing in 2016. Janina continues, to this day, to work with us. She translates Hebrew-language documents from the Yad Vashem Institute, which we use in the development of new stories of rescue.

The film "OCALENI” was created, nearly ten years ago, by Karolina Dzięciołowsk and Joanna Król for the POLIN Museum. To date, it has not been available on the Internetu. We decided to make it availble to mark this year's Yon Ha'Shoah - Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day [online premiere 8th April 2021, 8:00 pm] to honmour the film's heroes who. mostly, emigrated to Israel after the War or, like Jadwiga Rytlowa, are fascinatedby the rich cultureof this country.

Yom Ha'Shoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day

This commemoration has taken place in Israekl since 1951. It falls seven days after the seventh day of Pesach and seven days before Yom Ha'Zikaron, when fallen soldiers are commemorated. Yom Ha'Shoah, coinciding with the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is a time to commemorate the Jewish resistance movement in occupied Europe. In Hebrew, the full name of the day is Yom Ha'Zikaron l'Shoah ve -la-Gevura, namely the (Holocaust and Acts of Courage (Remembrance) Day.

Yom Ha'Shoah should not be confused with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, established by the United Nations, commemorated on the day marking the liberation of Auschwitz - the Nazi German concentration camp and extermination centre, which has become an international symbol.

Since 1988, in the period before and after Yom Ha'Shoah, Auschwitz-Birkenau has been visited by young Jews - students coming mainly from Israel and the United States, who participate in the March of the Living.