New memorial day to honour Poles who rescued Jews
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
22.03.2018 11:45
Film screenings, exhibitions and a host of other events will be held across Poland on Saturday as the country prepares to observe a new memorial day to honour those who helped Jews during World War II.
Prezydent Andrzej DudaFoto: prezydent.pl
Saturday will mark the first time Poland observes the new memorial day after the country’s president signed into law a plan to designate March 24 as the day to honour Poles who helped save Jews from the Holocaust.
The presidential signature, announced by his aides on Wednesday, came after the legislation -- which President Andrzej Duda had initiated himself -- passed the upper house of Poland’s parliament in mid-March.
A week earlier the lower house of Poland's parliament voted in favour of the move.
On March 24, 1944, German military police shot members of the Polish family of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, who were sheltering Jews in the village of Markowa in the southeast of the country.
The new memorial day is designed to be a tribute to Poles who saved their Jewish neighbours from extermination at the hands of Poland's Nazi German occupiers during the war.
(gs/pk)
Source: PAP