US foundation honors Polish gentiles who saved Jews in Holocaust

WARSAW, Poland — A U.S.based Jewish foundation honored Polish gentiles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, a number that grows smaller each year, with U.S. and Israeli diplomats also paying their respects at the event Sunday in Warsaw to the elderly Poles who put their lives in danger to save others.

Those still living today, 80 years after the start of World War II, were children or young adults during the war, and in most cases helped their parents in the dangerous job of hiding and feeding Jews. During the German occupation, those caught aiding Jews were punished with the execution of entire families.

Today, the rescuers are in their 80s and 90s and arrived at the event in Warsaw helped by their children.

“On behalf of the Jewish people, I thank you for your noble deeds so many years ago, for when most turned their backs on their Jewish neighbors, you did not,” Stanlee Stahl, the foundation’s executive vice president, told those gathered. “You will always be remembered in our prayers, for you didn’t just save the Jewish person 75 years ago, you made it possible for generations to be born.”

Giving one example, she singled out two brothers in attendance, Andrzej and Leszek Mikolajkow, who with their parents saved a Jewish mother, father and two sons. One of those sons ended up moving to Israel and having 12 sons of his own, and the family today numbers 300.

“You made it possible for hundreds if not thousands of people to be alive today,” Stahl said. “You have helped repair the world.”

All of the rescuers have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum and memorial.

According to Yad Vashem’s website, 27,362 people have been recognized to date as “Righteous Among the Nations,” even though there are certainly many more who helped Jews who haven’t been recognized because they were killed or there were no survivors to alert Yad Vashem to their actions. The country with the largest number of acknowledged rescuers, with far over 6,000, is Poland, which was home to Europe’s largest Jewish community before World War II.

The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous pays monthly stipends to elderly rescuers in Eastern Europe, many of whom live on pensions of only a few hundred dollars a month in Poland and far less in Ukraine and elsewhere. Last Christmas each rescuer got an additional $1,500, a gesture that goes far beyond just symbolic help, and has also helped them with medicines and hearing aids.

Warsaw is the only place in Europe where there are enough of them in one place to bring together. On Sunday, there were about 30 in attendance.