Commander’s Crosses for those who aided Jews

KD, 16 November 2016
On August 27, 2009, at 1 pm, as part of the ceremonies to honor the 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the Litzmannstadt ghetto in Łódź, the President of the Republic of Poland will decorate several dozen people who aided Jews during the Second World War with the Commander’s Cross. The ceremony at Park Ocalałych (named in honor of the survivors of the liquidation of the ghetto) will be accompanied by the unveiling of the Monument to Poles who Rescued Jews (Pomnik Polaków Ratujących Żydów) during World War II.


For this occasion the Chancellery of the President and the team working on the Museum of History of Polish Jews project Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten Memory have prepared the album Poles who Rescued Jews during the Holocaust. Recalling Forgotten Memory.

It is the third edition of the album. The album contains the profiles of the more than seventy people who will be decorated by the President with one of Poland’s highest awards; most of them have also been recognized by the Yad Vashem Institute as Righteous Among the Nations.

Each profile of a Righteous comprises a short biography and a photographic portrait. The bios were preapared on the basis of interviews conducted by the Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten Memory project team and on the basis of documents provided by the Institute of National Remembrance.


The foreword was written by Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, the Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the President, and simultaneusly the initiator of the Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten Memory project. Essays prefacing the deeply moving stories of the Righteous include the thoughts of representatives of two religions: Michael Schudrich, the Chief Rabbi of Poland and Fr. Roman Indrzejczyk, a member of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews; of Professor Feliks Tych and Professor Jan Grabowski, experts on the Holocaust of Jews, and an analysis by Jacek Leociak, PhD, of the Holocaust Literature Research Center at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.