History of Europe

How many Poles really died saving Jews?

Torture, concentration camps, executions, burning alive - that was the price of humanity in German-occupied Poland. How many Poles were murdered for helping Jewish neighbors?

German reports from occupied Poland quickly began to emphasize that anti-Semitic propaganda was not a sufficient means of deterring Poles from helping Jews. One of the goals of Nazi policy - the complete isolation of the representatives of the Jewish people - required radical decisions.

In October 1941, the Governor General, Hans Frank, issued an ordinance according to which in the German-occupied territory of Poland:

Jews who leave their assigned neighborhood without authorization are subject to the death penalty. The same punishment applies to persons who knowingly give such Jews a hiding place. Warmongers and helpers are subject to the same punishment as the perpetrator, an attempted act will be punished as a committed act. In less severe cases a prison sentence may be severely pronounced.

It was this statement by Hans Frank, released in October 1941, that started the horror of millions of people (source:public domain).

A bullet to the head for a glass of water

Not only hiding Jews was punished, but all help - food, financial aid, and even sending correspondence. It is known that in Mszana Dolna a Polish peasant was hanged by his legs and tortured for ... selling potatoes to a Jew! There are thousands of similar stories.

An exceptionally cruel way of fighting helping Jews was the use of collective responsibility by German soldiers. This, of course, contributed to an increase in the number of denunciations, especially in rural areas.

In 1942, thirty-one people were shot and burned alive in the area of ​​Ciepielów - the youngest victim was a seven-month-old child. In the village of Cisie near Mińsk Mazowiecki, three hiding Jews were discovered - fugitives from a transport to Treblinka. In retaliation, the Germans shot twenty-five people, including women and children. The village was burned down.

Tens, Hundreds, Thousands

Research on the actual level of help provided to Jews by Poles did not begin until the mid-1960s and, in principle, continues to this day. Researchers rely on German documents, Polish reports, diaries, memoirs of survivors and stories passed down in families from generation to generation.

As emphasized by Władysław Bartoszewski in the book “Poles - Jews - occupation. Facts, attitudes, reflections ”:

The total number of direct bloody victims of the action to help Jews in Poland is not known, and it is not possible to accurately record all or even the majority of such cases:very many the interested Polish and Jewish families are dead, post-war migration movements make it difficult to find witnesses of the events, a significant part of the evidence collected in the archives of secret organizations was destroyed in Warsaw during the 1944 uprising.

So we will never know the full price of blood shed by Poles to save people condemned to death by Nazism.

A photo of the Ulmas' marriage. Both murdered for hiding Jews in 1944. In 1995, they were posthumously awarded the "Righteous Among the Nations" medal (source:public domain).

The accounting discrepancies are huge. This is of course caused by enormous difficulties in obtaining documents and - often - inability to confirm the data on Polish victims.

Most of the calculations did not take into account those who died through the use of collective responsibility - probably because in this case it is difficult to separate those killed accidentally from those who were involved in helping Jews.

Teresa Prekerowa, awarded the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations, enumerated that thirty to sixty thousand Jews survived the war thanks to the direct help of Poles . According to her accounts, 360,000 Poles were involved in helping Jewish citizens.

Plaque in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations. Teresa Prekerowa's tree has been growing there since 1985 (photo:EdoM, license CC BY-SA 3.0).

Faceless

The first important document, created by Szymon Datner in 1968, mentions 343 cases of Poles executed for hiding and helping Jews. Documents collected by prosecutor Wacław Bielawski and located at the Institute of National Remembrance contain information on 2,300 death sentences (of which 1,400 victims remain anonymous) .

Certain and fully documented cases of murdering Poles are rare - as is the history of the Ulma family. The Ulmas, hiding eight Jews in the village of Markowa, were punished with death. Józef Ulma, his pregnant wife and six children were shot.

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Let's stay human

Despite the enormous risk, the help for the Jews did not stop. What's more - the awareness of the need to help grew and spread wider and wider circles. As we read in the already quoted book "Poles - Jews - occupation":

In a radio speech given in London on May 5, 1943 to Poles in Poland, General Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish Government, stated:a crime in human history.

Władysław Sikorski - Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile and author of the memorable speech (source:public domain).

I know that you are helping the persecuted Jews as much as you can. Thank you, citizens, on my own behalf and on behalf of the Polish government. I am asking you to give all possible help to Jews in Poland and try to oppose this terrible cruelty. "

Common cause

It is obvious that social attitudes were different - from extremely anti-Semitic ones, through indifferent ones, and ending with providing disinterested help. The attitude of the Polish authorities towards the denunciators and blackmailers was unambiguous - all cooperation with the occupant was treated as collaboration and even fear for one's own life was not a mitigating factor here.

The leadership of the Civil Fighting issued the following announcement in 1943:

[Society] Polish, although it is itself a victim of terrible terror, it looks with horror and deep compassion at the murder of the remains of the Jewish population in Poland by the Germans (...) out of honor and conscience, recruited from the criminal world, who have created a new source of wicked income by blackmailing Poles who are hiding Jews and Jews themselves.

KWC warns that such cases of blackmail are recorded and will be punished with all the severity of the law, if possible now and at least in the future.

Burnt village versus six weeks in jail

It is true that in no other country was aid to Jewish citizens on such a large scale as in Poland . On the other hand, it is incorrect to say that Poland was the only country where such aid was punished in such a brutal way - the regulations concerning the absolute introduction of collective responsibility were in force in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union and in the Balkan countries.

Passers-by gather around the execution site at al. Jerozolimskie. Photo taken in January 1944 (source:public domain).

What was it like in Western countries? In Belgium, Norway, and Nazi-allied Italy, no convictions for aiding Jews have been reported. There is one known case of shooting in Denmark. In France, one person was interned in a camp, several priests from the Diocese of Lyon were sentenced to prison for hiding Jewish children.

In the Netherlands, where even public protests against deportations were allowed, several cases of punishment of people hiding Jews were reported. Two Dutch people responsible for helping Anne Frank's family were convicted - one was in the camp and the other spent six weeks (!) In custody.

Poland remains the country with the largest number of people awarded the Order of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem - as of today, it is 6620 people. 704 decorations were awarded posthumously. It is obvious that the victim of another hundreds of Poles remains anonymous.