Honouring the Polish Righteous
PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp
07.01.2015 11:17
As many as 130 designs have been submitted for an international competition for a memorial to Poles who risked their lives saving Jews during the Nazi occupation.
Jewish History Museum in Warsaw. Photo: jewishmuseum.org.pl
The monument is to be located close to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw and its unveiling is planned for the autumn of this year.
About one third of the applications have come from outside Poland, mainly Israel, the United States, China, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain.
Karolina Szykier-Koszucka, the director of the ‘Remembrance and Future’ Foundation which is overseeing the project, told the Polish Press Agency that the international jury is facing a very difficult task. Next month, the jury will announce a shortlist of five projects whose authors will be invited to present the final versions of their concepts.
The memorial is the brainchild of Zygmunt Rolat, a Polish Jew who lost his family during the war and as a boy of 15 emigrated from Poland and settled in the United States, developing a successful business career there.
Rolat stressed on several occasions that the memorial, which will be financed entirely by Jews in Israel and other countries, will be an expression of gratitude, not of the Polish government or the city of Warsaw, but of those Jews who were saved.
President Bronislaw Komorowski is among the supporters of Rolat’s initiative. The International and Polish Committees which are monitoring the realisation of the project include the Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, former foreign minister Adam Daniel Rotfeld, former Israeli Ambassador in Poland Shewach Weiss, film directors Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi, and the director of the National Opera Waldemar Dabrowski. (mk/jb)