AMERICANS HONOUR POLES RESCUING JEWS

KD, 16 November 2016
On 25 September 2009, Democratic Senator Arlen Spencer submitted a draft of a resolution calling on Americans to “reflect on and remember the courage and integrity” of over 6,000 Poles honoured with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Institute.

In the draft, in it emphasized that Poles risked “their lives and the lives of their families to save their Jewish compatriot from the barbarity and extermination from the hands of the Nazi,” because over the entire course of WWII, Poland was “the only country where rescuing Jews was punishable by immediate execution of entire families.”

The resolution was submitted to the U.S. Senate Commission on Foreign Affairs. The vote on the proposal is yet to be scheduled. The document points out that the 6135 Poles who were given the title of a Righteous by Yad Vashem constitute 27% of all the world's Righteous.

The idea for the resolution came from the Polish American Congress. The document is yet to gain supporters – the Polish American Congress called on its members to send letters and e-mails to American senators and encourage them to vote in favour.

Full text on the resolution on the Polish American Congress website

(Polish Press Agency)