President opens museum honouring Poles who helped Jews
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
17.03.2016 19:59
President Andrzej Duda on Thursday opened a museum dedicated to Poles who rescued Jews during WW II.
Andrzej Duda during the museum opening ceremony. Photo: PAP/Darek Delmanowicz
The museum, in the village of Markowa, south-eastern Poland, is named in honour of the Polish Ulma family, who were shot there by the country’s Nazi-German occupiers for sheltering Jews.
“Poland, and historical justice, very much needed such a monument,” Duda said.
The museum is the first in this country dedicated to all Poles who risked their lives to help their fellow Jewish citizens facing the Holocaust.
“Many people come to our country to see the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp [run by Nazi Germans in occupied Poland during the war] and other evidence… of what hate means, what sick ideology means,” Duda said.
“But, fortunately, in recent years other places are appearing in our country. Other places marking what is good in history. What is beautiful, even in the most tragic episodes in history. This museum is certainly such a place.”
On 24 March 1944, German policemen shot eight Jews who were being sheltered by Józef and Wiktoria Ulma. The couple and their six children were also killed.
In 1995, Israel's Yad Vashem institute posthumously named the Ulma family Righteous Among the Nations.
Over 6,600 ethnic Poles are commemorated in Israel's Garden of the Righteous in Jerusalem for aiding Jews during World War II. (pk)
Source: IAR/Polish Radio