Konstanty Rokicki Honoured in Switzerland

Mateusz Szczepaniak / English translation: Andrew Rajcher, 19 October 2018
A ceremony took place in Lucerne on 9th October in memory of Konstanty Rokicki (1899–1958), Polish Consul in Bern between 1939 and 1945, who rescued Jews from the Holocaust by issuing them with false Paraguayan passports. During the ceremony, a new tombstone was unveiled on the Polish diplomat's grave in the Friedental Cemetery. The event was attended by the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, accompanied by his wife.

At the Polish Delegation in Bern, I met with Mr Ryniewicz and Mr Rokicki. Both drew my attention to the fact that certain people in Switzerland are involved in providing South American passports to Poles in German-occupied countries. These passports enable them to improve their situation. We were dealing with a real passport “black market”. The gentlemen from the Delegation expressed the wish that I should take responsibility for this matter – Abraham Silberschein

Consul Konstanty Rokicki belonged to the so-called “Bern group”, consisting of Polish diplomats and Jewish political activists who, in 1941–1943 in Switzerland, falsified South American passports in order to save Jews from the Holocaust. As well as Rokicki, the group included Polish MP Aleksander Ładoś (1891–1963), Polish Delegation advisor from 1938 to 1945 and Deputy MP Stefan Ryniewicz (1903–1987) and Polish Delegation attaché and expert on contact with Jewish organisations Juliusz Kühl (1913–1985). They worked together with World Jewish Congress member Abraham Silberschein (1882–1951) and Zurich rabbi Chaim Eis (1876–1943).

In February 2018, in presenting documents regarding Polish diplomats at the Shoah Memorial Museum in Paris, the Polish Ambassador in Bern Jakub Kumach said:

Juliusz Kühl, an employee at the Polish Consulate in Bern and himself a Jew, went to the Paraguayan Honorary Consul, probably handed over bribes and received blank passports which he then brought to the Polish Consulate. Consul Konstanty Rokicki then carefully filled them out with the names which he had received from Jewish organisations.

Rokicki mainly falsified passports from Paraguay, but also those from Honduras, Peru, El Salvador, Bolivia and Haiti. The completed documents were then returned to the Paraguayan Honorary Consul in Switzerland, who notarised copies of them, after which Jewish organisations would smuggle them into ghettoes. Kumoch points out:

He said that if someone were to show something like that to the Gestapo, they would not be subjected to any deportation. And, indeed, such people were first sent to Pawiak and, from there, to an internment camp, most often in France.

An analysis carried out by the Polish Embassy in Switerland shows that around 1,000 documents were provided and that almost 800 holders of these documents survived the Holocaust. One of those is Adam Daniel Rotfeld, who would later serve as Polish Minister of Foriegn Affairs.

For his deeds, Consul Rokicki has yet to be honoured. All but forgotten, he died in Lucerne, where he was buried in that part of the Friedental cemetery reserved for the poor and, after twenty years, his tomb was destroyed. Many years later, the diplomat's resting place was located and, on 9th October 2018, in the presence of Polish President Andrzej Duda, a new tombstone was unveiled. During the ceremony, the President of Poland said:

We stand at the grave of a man who symbolises a shining star in the black sky of the dramatic years of World War II, when the German Nazis carried out a genocide on the Jewish people. We bow our heads to all the victims of this terrible Holocaust, the most horrible years, not only of the twentieth century, but probably also in the history of all mankind.

The ceremony was attended by Holocaust survivors rescued by Rokicki and their descendants who had come from Israel, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands, as well as Poles and Jews from Switzerland.