Polish Righteous among the Nations

Polish Righteous

Medals and diplomas awarded at a ceremony in the Polish Senate on 17 April 2012

There are 6,620 Polish men and women recognized as Righteous by the State of Israel

Warning of death penalty for supporting Jews

NOTICE Concerning: the Sheltering of Escaping Jews.    There is a need for a reminder, that in accordance with paragraph 3 of the decree of 15 October 1941, on the Limitation of Residence in the General Government (page 595 of the GG Register) Jews leaving the Jewish Quarter without permission will incur the death penalty.    According to this decree, those knowingly helping these Jews by providing shelter, supplying food, or selling them foodstuffs are also subject to the death penalty.    This is a categorical warning to the non-Jewish population against:          1) Providing shelter to Jews,          2) Supplying them with Food,          3) Selling them Foodstuffs. Częstochowa 9/24/42      Der Stadthauptmann Dr. Franke

The citizens of Poland have the world's highest count of individuals who have been recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews from extermination during the Holocaust in World War II. There are 6,620 Polish men and women recognized as Righteous to this day, over a quarter of the total number of 26,120 awards.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Poles concealed and aided hundreds of thousands of their Polish-Jewish neighbors. Many of these initiatives were carried out by individuals, but there also existed organized networks of Polish resistance which were dedicated to aiding Jews – most notably, the Żegota organization.

In German-occupied Poland the task of rescuing Jews was especially difficult and dangerous. All household members were punished by death if a Jew was found concealed in their home or on their property. It is estimated that the number of Poles who were killed by the Nazis for aiding Jews was as high as tens of thousands, 704 of whom were posthumously honored with medals.

Before World War II, Poland's Jewish community had numbered between 3,300,000 and 3,500,000 persons – about 10 percent of the country's total population. During World War II, Germany's Nazi regime sent millions of deportees from every European country to the concentration camps it set up in the General Government in occupied Poland. Soon after war had broken out, the Germans began their extermination of Polish Jews, ethnic Polish, Romani, Russians, Czech, and others minorities of Poland. Most were quickly rounded up and imprisoned in ghettos, which they were forbidden to leave.