Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust

Polish Jews were the primary victims of the Nazi-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Poles risked their own lives – and the lives of their families – to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. To date, 6,706 Christian Poles have been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by the State of Israel – more than those of any other nation by far.

The Armia Krajowa (Polish resistance) alerted the world to the Holocaust, notably with the reports of Witold Pilecki and Jan Karski. The Polish government-in-exile and the Polish Secret State asked for American and British help to stop the Holocaust, to no avail.

Some estimates put the number of Poles involved in rescue at up to 3 million, and credit Poles with saving up to around 450,000 Jews from certain death. The rescue efforts were aided by one of the largest anti-Nazi resistance movements in Europe, the Polish Underground State and its military arm, the Armia Krajowa. Supported by the Polish government-in-exile, these organizations operated special units dedicated to helping Jews; of those, the most notable was Żegota Council based in Warsaw with branches in Kraków, Wilno and Lwów.

Polish citizens were hampered by the most extreme conditions in all of German-occupied Europe. Occupied Poland was the only territory where the Germans decreed that any kind of help for Jews was punishable by death for the helper and their entire family. Of the estimated 3 million non-Jewish Poles killed in World War II, up to 50,000 were executed by Nazi Germany solely as the penalty for saving Jews. After the War most of this information was suppressed by the Soviet-installed satellite regime in an attempt to discredit Polish prewar society and its wartime government as reactionary.

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