The Most Interesting Stories, the Most Beautiful Photographs - the Year 2025 on the Polish Righteous Portal

Mateusz Szczepaniak, 9 January 2026

Can you imagine what life might have been like in the underground hideout built by Andrzej Śliwiak in Kołomyia, where Marceli and Pola Najder and other Jews hid for more than a dozen months during the German occupation? Have you heard of the actor Leon Eitel who, in occupied Warsaw, organised an aid network for escapees from the Warsaw Ghetto, working together with several extraordinarily courageous women? Would you like to learn the story of Witalis Wróblewski and his partner Stanisław Miciński, who rescued Janina Forbert? Or of Wiktor Hochberg who, through his own resourcefulness, ingenuity and courage saved his loved ones during the Holocaust? These and other stories are recalled in our editorial summary of 2025. We invite you to explore the content published on the Polish Righteous portal. Read selected stories of rescue, see the most beautiful photographs and listen to moving oral-history interviews from the POLIN Museum collection. Also, discover what we have planned for the coming year.

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"Sometimes, Leon would come to us and pass on news to me […]. Before Christmas, he came to see me with a message from Mrs. Głębicka, who invited me to spend the holidays at her home together with my mother. The atmosphere during the holidays was joyful and warm. […] I adored Mrs. Głębicka because she respected my mother and always welcomed me warmly—quite literally like a sister; I also admired her for maintaining optimism and a joy for life despite the difficult and dangerous conditions in which we all found ourselves. That was the beginning of our friendship for the rest of our lives”
This is the most recent story of rescue story, published in December 2025.

Selected new additions to the Polish Righteous Portal (TOP 10)

From among the new publications on the Polish Righteous portal, we have selected the ten most interesting pieces from the past year. Discover stories of assistance given to Jews during the Holocaust in occupied Poland, and read thematic studies on Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World War:

Most read item on the Polish Righteous portal (TOP 10)

On our portal, we present over 1,000 stories of rescue, which are read each year by more than 200,000 users. As we sum up the past year, we have compiled information on the content that has attracted, amongst our readers, the greatest popularity over the last twelve months .

See the ranking of the most frequently viewed publications on our portal and find something that will interest you also:

The most beautiful photographs from the POLIN Museum collection

In the photograph we see a couple sitting on rocks, with the Szklarka Waterfall in the background—the second-largest waterfall in the Polish Karkonosze Mountains. This is Witold Góra (Wiktor Hochberg) and his wife Lucyna (Pola), during a summer outing in 1953.

Barely a few years earlier, they had survived the Holocaust thanks to Wiktor’s courage, resourcefulness and ingenuity. He rescued his loved ones from the Warsaw Ghetto, arranged forged documents for them, found places of hiding and earned a living to support the family. On the “Aryan side”, he also cared for complete strangers, selflessly helping many Jews, who were in hiding.

We selected this photograph as the main illustration for our annual summary as it offers hope. It is an image of a new beginning after the Hochberg family’s traumatic experiences, and an image of calm in the presence of powerful, enduring nature.

This is one of more than 11,000 photographs presented on the Polish Righteous portal. In 2025, we published over 1,000 new images. Among them are archival photographs donated to the POLIN Museum by descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors and by families of Poles honoured with the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".

The new additions also include contemporary portraits of witnesses to history and photographs taken during on-site documentation work, including at the former home of Maurycy and Felicja Herling-Grudziński in Boernero in Warsaw. It was here in Warsaw that the "Felicja” cell operated as part of the "Żegota" Council to Aid Jews.

Fifty selected photographs are presented in the photo gallery at the top of this page (⤻).

Once again, this year, we celebrated World Photograohy Day, which provided us with an opportunity to showcase ten exceptional photographs from the POLIN Museum’s digital collection. Photographs were also an important element of commemorations of historical anniversaries, to which we dedicated special feature articles:

Also, view the coverage of the "Righteous Among the Nations medal award ceremony, hosted by the POLIN Museum in December 2025 and read the stories of those who were honoured.

The latest oral history interviews

The POLIN Museum has more than 1,000 oral history interviews in its collections. Those interviews are primarily Polish Jews, their descendants and Poles who were witnesses to Jewish wartime experiences.

We make these interviews available are always available to view on our Oral History / POLIN Museum collection YouTube channel. Some of these, which focus on the Holocaust experience, are also available on our Polish Righteous portal.

This year, we released additional interviews with Holocaust survivors, as well as with people who provided aid to Jews in occupied Poland.

Watch five selected oral history interviews and explore the biographical accounts of Poles and Jews regarding the Second World War:

What's new in 2026? Upcoming publications from the Polish Righteous portal editorial team

In the new year, we will continue to expand the Polish Righteous portal with new stories of help, archival and contemporary photographs, and oral history interviews from the POLIN Museum collection. As part of the #NewStoriesOfTheRighteous publishing series, we will release 12 new rescue stories (one publication per month), as well as 24 updated rescue stories (published twice a month).

Among others, we will publish the story of Kazimiera Żuławska (née Hanicka) - a Romance philologist and translator, mountaineer and alpine climber, women’s rights social activist , widow of the Young Poland poet Jerzy Żuławski, and a friend of Witkacy. Together with her son Wawrzyniec - a composer and music critic, also a mountaineer and alpine climber - Kazimiera helped many Jewish men and women in their apartment on ul. Marszałkowska in Warsaw. The Żuławski family not only provided shelter to those in need, but also arranged forged documents for them and helped them find employment.

In 1981, they were posthumously honoured with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. 2026 will mark the 55th anniversary of the passing of Kazimiera and the 110th anniversary of Wawrzyniec's birth.

In her account**, Kazimiera Żuławska wrote:

“When I cast my thoughts back to those cruel times- the time of the German invasion - a procession of shadows passes before my eyes - memories of people who today are, for the most part, lost or no longer alive. Involuntarily, their movements, gestures, and turns of phrase take shape in my memory…
My former apartment, which no longer exists today, appears before me as it was in those years - the sole asylum, a home for me and for ‘them’ - something like a fragile boat on the waves of a hostile ocean, which nevertheless - at least for a time - managed to give us all the illusion of safety, calm, and quiet,”

In the new year, we will continue to expand the thematic section Jews Helping Other Jews on the "Aryan Side", within which we document and promote lesser known stories of Jewish mutual aid during the Holocaust. We will also publish new thematic studies, including those connected with the subject of the POLIN Museum’s current temporary exhibition "The Power of Words - Jewish Languages”.

In 2026, we will commemorate important historical anniversaries and days of remembrance, including the 85th anniversary of the sealing of the Kraków Ghetto (20th March), the 85th anniversary of the Jedwabne massacre (10th July) and the 85th anniversary of the introduction by the Germans of the death penalty for leaving ghettos and for aiding Jews (15th October).

2026 will also be a Year of Patrons, including Polish Radio, Polish State Railways and the City of Gdynia on the occasion of their 100th anniversaries, as well as Mieczysław Fogg on the 125th anniversary of the birth of the renowned singer and Righteous Among the Nations.

As every year, we will also publish new content marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day (27the January), European Day of Remembrance for the Righteous (6th March), National Remembrance Day of Poles who Rescued Jews Under German Occupation (24th March), as well as the anniversary of the establishment of the Żegota" Council to Aid Jews (4th December).

Sources of Quotations:

*Yad Vashem Archives, ref. M.31.2/4733/2; Halina Kowzan's account: Świadectwo ocalałej, Caen, 15/02/1990, translated from French by Halina Salgarolo (a POLIN Museum volunteer).
** K. Żuławska [in:] Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej. Polacy z pomocą Żydom 1939–1945, ed. Władysław Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewinówna, Znak Publishing House, Kraków 2013, p. 340.