Are you looking for reliable knowledge about the attitudes of Poles toward the extermination of Jews and about Polish-Jewish relations during World War II? Are you searching for information about the Righteous Among the Nations and Holocaust survivors? Would you like to learn their stories, see related artifacts and listen to oral history testimonies from POLIN Museum collections? Then you should browse through our museum knowledge portal – the Polish Righteous (righteous.pl).
Righteous Andrzej Śliwiak (on the right) with Survivor Pola Najder-Gałkiewicz (in the centre) – the photograph was taken at their first meeting after the war, full of emotion and sincerity, Świnoujście, circa 1975. Photo: Tomasz Najder / POLIN Museum collection
On the Polish Righteous portal, we document and disseminate the stories of Polish men and women who, at the risk of their own lives, selflessly helped Jews during the Second World War. In this way, we commemorate the rescuers – above all the Righteous Among the Nations – as well as the survivors and the victims of the Holocaust.
We present these stories of aid against the broader historical background of occupied Poland (1939–1945), where Jews were condemned by Nazi Germany to total extermination and providing them with help was severely punished, even by death. We show that Polish attitudes toward the Holocaust were diverse and complex and that assistance to Jews was an exceptional phenomenon.
On the portal, you will find a collection of over 1,000 stories of aid, a collection that we continually expand and update. These texts are carefully prepared by Holocaust researchers and are based on historical sources. They include oral history interviews, archival and contemporary photographs as well as personal and historical memorabilia from the collection of POLIN Museum.
Complementing these rescue stories are historical studies in which we present selected issues in an accessible way, in light of the latest scholarly research. The topics we discuss include the motivations of those who provided help; the risk of the death penalty and other dangers associated with aiding Jews; the experience of Jews in hiding and the phenomenon of mutual aid on the "Aryan side"; the activities of the "Żegota" Council to Aid Jews; the shaping of the memory of the Righteous; and narratives in public discourse about rescuing Jews.
For teachers, we provide educational materials from POLIN Museum, including lesson plans, films, and interviews with experts on the Righteous Among the Nations, such as Irena Sendler and her co-workers as well as Jan and Antonina Żabiński.
The portal was created as part of the "Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten History" project, which was launched in 2007 under the honorary patronage of the President of the Republic of Poland. The portal is available in two language versions – Polish and English. Its content can be searched by, among other criteria, names; places where aid was provided; historical themes; and keywords. We also encourage you to follow the Polish Righteous Page on Facebook.
"Whoever saves a single life saves the world entire" – reads the sentence from the Talmud, which is inscribed on the medal awarded to the Righteous Among the Nations. We believe that in the face of contemporary wars and conflicts, the stories of these extraordinary individuals – their courage, empathy and selfless sacrifice, as well as the heroic will of Jews to survive during the Holocaust – can serve today as an inspiration for actions in support of human rights, dialogue and the search for what unites rather than divides.