Senate Award Presentation Ceremony

KJ, 16 November 2016
A “Righteous Among the Nations” award presentation ceremony took place in the Polish Senate on 17th April. Nineteen Poles, who during the War aided Jews, were posthumously honoured. Medals and certificates, presented by the Yad Vashem Institute, were accepted by close relatives.

The ceremony commenced with an address by Speaker of the Sejm, Bogdan Borusewicz, who said that this decoration was especially significant in preserving, for future generations, the memory of the heroic attitudes of the Righteous. Israel’s Ambassador to Poland, Zvi Rav-Ner, stressed that the rescuers had shown enormous courage and heroism which deserves to be admired. Knowledge of their deeds should be widespread so that the evils of World War II can never be repeated.

The Ambassador presented posthumous medals and certificates to the families of the following nineteen deceased:

Maria Bocheńska, Marianna Popińska-Rajska, Maria Strzelecka

Bolesław  Czuliński

Józef Jaworowski

Julia and Sylwina Lubański, Helena and Sylwina Lubański

 Franciszka and Jan Sasin

Kazimierz Seko, Katarzyna and Jan Witz

Helena and Józef Damski

Eudokia and Antoni Sabadachas well as Bazyl Sabadach.

 

The ceremony featured a concert by violinist Prof. Adam Han-Górski, accompanied by Prof. Maria Szwajger-Kułakowska. Prof. Adam Han-Górski, as a child, was saved from the Holocaust by Katarzyna and Jan Witz, as well as by Kazimierz Seko.

Translation: Andrew Rajcher