Many Jews were saved by Poles who provided them with shelter and food. This is why the largest number of trees at Yad Vashem honor Poles. They were willing to help and even sacrifice their lives for their friends. We are incredibly proud of them,” said President Andrzej Duda during a ceremony on the National Day of Remembrance for Poles Who Rescued Jews Under German Occupation.
We Must Remember Them
President Duda emphasized that Jews were an integral part of Poland’s vast national community.
“For centuries, they fought alongside us for a free, sovereign, and independent Poland. Our ancestors witnessed their Jewish neighbors being taken away and murdered. Offering help to them was punishable by death—not only for the one who helped but for their entire family,” he stressed.
Despite this extreme danger, “it turned out that not just dozens or hundreds, but hundreds of thousands of people were involved in aiding Jews in one way or another.”
“Many Jews were saved by Poles who gave them shelter and food. This is why the largest number of trees at Yad Vashem honor Poles. They were willing to help and even sacrifice their lives for their friends. We are incredibly proud of them,” President Duda reiterated.
He highlighted the Ulma family as the most “symbolic and powerful example of selfless assistance.”
“They shared their bread with their Jewish neighbors and gave them shelter—just like many other families in their village. Unfortunately, on March 24, 1944, they were brutally murdered,” he reminded.
A Day of Remembrance
The National Day of Remembrance for Poles Who Rescued Jews was established in 2018 by the Polish parliament at the initiative of President Duda. It serves as a tribute to all Polish citizens—regardless of nationality—who helped Jews subjected to genocide by the German occupiers.
The chosen date commemorates the tragic events in Markowa (present-day Podkarpackie Voivodeship), where the Ulma family was executed by the Germans. On March 24, 1944, Józef Ulma, his pregnant wife Wiktoria, their six young children, and eight Jews they were sheltering—the Didner, Grünfeld, and Goldman families—were all murdered.