“At the Risk of Their Lives – Poles Rescuing Jews During the Holocaust” – an exhibition presentation in Kępno

Redakcja, 5 September 2025

During 4th-11th September 2025, the “Festival of Three Cultures” will take place in Kępno (Wielkopolskie Province). This will be the eighth presentation of this unique cultural and educational event, devoted to the town’s local history – Polish, German, and Jewish. Among other events, the festival program features a presentation of POLIN Museum’s traveling exhibition “At the Risk of Their Lives – Poles Rescuing Jews During the Holocaust”, as well as a lecture by Dr. Mariusz Jastrząb and Oksana Chala entitled “Disputes Over the Past – Jews and Polish-Jewish Relations in Contemporary Polish Public Discourse”. We encourage you to explore the full festival program and take part in the events organised in cooperation with the POLIN Museum.

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“This year’s Festival offers as many as four days of cultural and artistic events which draw upon the history of our town. It also includes numerous accompanying events, co-created with Kępno’s cultural institutions, the St. Marcin Association in Kępno, and in cooperation with institutions such as the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, the Western Institute, the Poznań Philharmonic, and the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute.

I encourage everyone to take part in the Festival. I am convinced that it will guarantee unforgettable experiences and impressions”, said Piotr Psikus, Mayor of the Town and the Municipality of Kępno.

The travelling exhibition “At the Risk of Their Lives – Poles Rescuing Jews During the Holocaust”

The exhibition presents stories of aid given to Jews by Poles during World War II. It was prepared based on the unique collection of testimonies from rescuers and survivors, drawn from the oral history archive of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

The exhibition presents the stories of Poles who, at the risk of their own lives and those of their families, helped persecuted Jews. Such actions were rare and exceptional, requiring courage and perseverance, as in German-occupied Poland, aiding Jews was punishable by death.

Most Poles remained passive in the face of the Holocaust. Many showed indifference toward Jews and some even hostility. After the war, some of the rescuers were honoured, by the State of Israel, with the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

The exhibition places the stories of rescuers and the rescued in the historical context of occupied Poland, explaining the circumstances and scale of the aid provided, as well as the motivations that guided the Righteous.

In the exhibition, individual stories of rescue are presented using the POLIN Museum’s digital collection –testimonies of rescuers and survivors which the Museum has been gathering since 2007, as well as digitized family archives. The full collection, comprising more than 1,000 stories of aid, along with historical studies on the Holocaust within Polish territory, is published on the museum’s Polish Righteous portal.

The exhibition “At the Risk of Their Lives – Poles Rescuing Jews During the Holocaust” was prepared by the POLIN Museum in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland in 2013. It has been translated into ten languages – English, Bulgarian, Chinese, German, Russian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Italian, Hungarian and Lithuanian. For over five years, it has been traveling across Europe and around the world.

The exhibition’s first presentation took place at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in 2013. Since then, the exhibition has also been shown in, among other cities, New York, Havana, Melbourne, Shanghai, Moscow, Madrid, Berlin, Vilnius, and Warsaw.

The exhibition will be presented during the “Festival of Three Cultures” in Kępno during Kępnie during 4th-11th September 2025. The exhibition can also be viewed online on the Polish Righteous portal.

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Authors: Joanna Król and Klara Jackl / POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Academic consultants: Prof. Feliks Tych, Dr. Hanna Węgrzynek
Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Foreign Affairs consultants: Dr. Elżbieta Frister, Dr. Sebastian Rejak, Dr. Krzysztof Strzałka
Project graphics: Type2
Warsaw, 2013 (completed 2018)
Technical Specifications: 18 panels, each measuring 90 cm x 120 cm