Polish Righteous at the University of Washington in Seattle

ZZ, 16 November 2016
Thanks to a joint initiative of the Polish community and Jewish organizations in the state of Washington, a series of lectures on saving Jews by Poles during World War II has been inaugurated at the University of Washington in Seattle. The lectures are complemented by an exhibition by the late Chris Schwartz, a London photographer, founder and first president of the na stronie internetowej „Galicia Jewish Museum” in Cracow called “Polish heroes: Those Who Rescued Jews” .The exhibition shows portraits and war stories of 21 Polish Righteous from the Cracow region and from around the world.

“Both the exhibition and the lectures concerning the subject of Poles saving Jews, available to thousands of students of our university at the school's library, are very popular” said Mrs. Krystyna Untersteiner, one of the organizers, who has also shown the students the website of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, emphasizing the Righteous program's section.

Professor Przemysław Chojnowski from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Stanlee Stahl, the Executive Vice President of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, professor Keely Stauter-Halsted from the Univesity of Michigan, and one of the saved - Henry Friedman are among the lecturers. The lectures will be complemented by film documentaries, with a foreword by Ms.Martha Golubiec from the University of Washington.

The exhibition and the series of lectures have been organizes thanks to the efforts of the University of Washington Polish Studies Endowment Committee (UW PSEC), General Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles, the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center (WSHERC), the support of the departments of History and Slavic Studies, The Ellison Center, Jewish Studies Center at the University of Washington.