Żegota

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For other uses, see Żegota (disambiguation).
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Żegota ([ʒε:gɔta] (help·info)) was the codename for the Council for Aid to Jews (Rada Pomocy Żydom), an underground organization in German-occupied Poland from 1942 to 1945. It operated under the auspices of the Polish Government in Exile through the Delegatura, its presence in Warsaw. The goal of the Żegota was to help the Jews and find, for at least some of them, a place of safety in occupied Poland. Poland was the only country in occupied Europe where throughout the duration of the war such organization existed.[1]

Contents

[edit] History

The Council for Aid to Jews was the continuation of an earlier secret committee set up for this purpose, called the Provisional Committee for Aid to Jews (Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom), founded in September 1942 by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz. Another well-known member was Władysław Bartoszewski, later Polish Foreign Minister (1995, 2000). Made up of democratic as well as monarchist Polish Catholic activists, the Provisional Committee had 180 persons under its care within a short time. Żegota, founded in October of 1942, was a brainchild of Henryk Woliński. It included Jewish organizations, represented on the central committee by Adolf Bermann and Leon Feiner. For that reason, Kossack-Szczucka withdrew from participation. She had wanted Żegota to be an example of pure Christian charity and argued that the Jews had their own charity organizations. Kossack-Szczucka went on to act in the Social Self-Help Organization (Społeczna Organizacja Samopomocy - SOS) as a liaison between Żegota and Catholic convents and orphanages, where Catholic clergy hid many Jews.

[edit] Composition

During the war, Żegota was the only underground organization that was run jointly by Jews and Polish non-Jews from a wide range of political movements. Politically, the organization was formed by Polish and Jewish underground political parties. On the Jewish side, the member organizations were the Jewish National Committee (an umbrella group representing the Zionist parties) and the socialist Bund. Both the Jewish parties also operated independently, using money from Jewish organizations abroad channelled to them by the Polish underground. They helped to subsidize the Polish branch of the organization, whose funding from the Polish Government-in-Exile reached significant proportions only in the spring of 1944. On the Polish side, political participation ranged from the socialist (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna) to centrist (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne), with also a small rightist contingent (Front Odrodzenia Polski). Notably, the main right-wing party, the National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe) refused to participate.

[edit] Activities

Żegota helped save some 4,000 Polish Jews, mainly by providing relief money and false identity documents for Jews hiding on the so-called "Aryan" side in German-occupied Poland. Most of its activity took place in Warsaw. The Jewish National Committee had some 5,600 Jews under its care, and the Bund an additional 1,500, but the activities of the three organizations overlapped to a considerable degree. Between them, they were able to reach some 8,500 of the 28,000 Jews hiding in Warsaw, as well as perhaps 1,000 elsewhere in Poland.

The organizations played almost no part in arranging the escape of Jews from ghettos, camps and deportation trains: its activities were largely confined to those already in hiding.[citation needed] Escape occurred mostly spontaneously through personal contacts, and most of the help that was extended to Jews in Poland was similarly personal in nature. Since Jews in hiding preferred to remain well-concealed, Zegota had trouble finding them. Its activities therefore did not develop on a larger scale until late in 1943.

The German occupying forces made concealing Jews a crime punishable by death for everyone living in a house where Jews were discovered. Although this penalty was rarely enforced in practice - it is estimated that some 700 Poles were killed for hiding Jews, out of some 200,000 engaged in this activity - it did act as a deterrent.

Zegota did play a large part in placing Jewish children with foster families, public orphanages and church institutions (orphanages and convents). The foster families had to be told that the children were Jewish, so that they could take appropriate precautions, especially in the case of boys. (Jewish boys, unlike Poles, were circumcised.) Żegota sometimes paid for the children's care. In Warsaw, Żegota's children department, headed by Irena Sendler, cared for 2,500 of the 9,000 Jewish children smuggled from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Medical attention for the Jews in hiding was also made available through the Committee of Democratic and Socialist Physicians. Żegota had ties with many ghettos and camps. It also made numerous efforts to induce the Polish Government in Exile and the Delegatura to appeal to the Polish population to help the persecuted Jews.[2]

[edit] Postwar recognition

Members of Żegota were memorialised in Israel in 1963 with a planting of a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous at Yad Vashem. Władysław Bartoszewski was present at the event.

[edit] Quotes

  • “Żegota is the story of extraordinary heroism amidst unique depravity – compelling in its human as well as historical dimensions. It is a particularly valuable addition to our understanding of the many facets of the Holocaust because Żegota as an organized effort was tantamount to ‘Schindler’s List’ multiplied a hundredfold.” ― Zbigniew Brzeziński

[edit] Notes and references

General:
  1. ^ Andrzej Sławiński, Those who helped Polish Jews during WWII. Translated from Polish by Antoni Bohdanowicz. Article on the pages of the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association. Last accessed on March 14 2008.
  2. ^ Paulsson (2002)

[edit] External links