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Żegota Council to Aid Jews

3rd anniversary of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Żegota members, Warsaw, April 1946. Seated, from right: Piotr Gajewski, Ferdynand Marek Arczyński, Władysław Bartoszewski, Adolf Berman, Tadeusz Rek [pl].
Predecessor	Provisional Committee to Aid Jews
Formation	September 27, 1942; 82 years ago (1942-09-27)
Founder	Henryk Woliński,
Type	Underground organization
Purpose	Help and distribution of relief funds to Polish Jews in World War II
Headquarters	Warsaw
Location	Kraków, Wilno, Lwów
Region	German occupied Poland
Key people	Henryk Woliński, Julian Grobelny, Ferdynand Arczyński, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz, Adolf Berman, Leon Feiner, Władysław Bartoszewski

Żegota (Template:IPA-pol, full codename: the "Konrad Żegota Committee") was the Polish Council to Aid Jews with the Government Delegation for Poland (Template:Lang-pl), an underground Polish resistance organization, and part of the Polish Underground State, active 1942–45 in German-occupied Poland. It was the successor to the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews.

Richard C. Lukas estimated that 60,000, or about half of the Jews who survived the Holocaust in occupied Poland (such estimates vary), were aided in some shape or form by Żegota. Czesław Łuczak estimated that about 30,000 people received such aid.

Operatives of rescue organizations such as Żegota, the Emergency Rescue Committee and the Œuvre de secours aux enfants worked in extreme circumstances - under threat of death by the Nazi forces, and often in the midst of a hostile population. Their work required exceptional bravery, and many were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations after the war.

Background and organization

The Council to Aid Jews, or Żegota, was the continuation of an earlier aid organization, the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews (Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom), that was founded on 27 September 1942 by Polish Catholic activists Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz ("Alinka"). The Provisional Committee cared for as many as 180 people, but due to political and financial reasons it was dissolved and replaced by Żegota on December 4, 1942. Żegota was the brainchild of Henryk Woliński of the Home Army (AK).

Kossak-Szczucka initially wanted Żegota to become an example of a "pure Christian charity", arguing that Jews had their own international charity organizations nevertheless the organization was run by both Jews and non-Jews from a wide range of political movements. Julian Grobelny, an activist in the prewar Polish Socialist Party, was elected as General Secretary, and Ferdynand Arczyński - a member of the Polish Democratic Party - as treasurer. Adolf Berman and Leon Feiner represented the Jewish National Committee (an umbrella group representing the Zionist parties) and the Marxist General Jewish Labour Bund. Both parties operated independently, channeling funds donated by Jewish organizations abroad to Żegota and other underground operations. Other members included the Polish Socialist Party, the Democratic Party (Stronnictwo Demokratyczne) and the Catholic Front for the Rebirth of Poland (Front Odrodzenia Polski) led by Kossak-Szczucka and Witold Bieńkowski, editors of its underground publications. The right-wing National Party (Stronnictwo Narodowe) refused to take part in the organization.

Kossak-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 as well as other public orphanages, which jointly hid many Jewish children.

Operations

Żegota had around one hundred cells, that provided food, medical care, money, and false identification documents to around 4,000 Polish Jews hiding on the so-called "Aryan side" of the German occupation zone. Most of the organization's activity took place in Warsaw, where it helped some 3,000 hiding Jews, but it also provided money, food, and medicine for prisoners in several forced-labor camps, as well as to refugees in Kraków, Wilno (Vilnius) and Lwów (L'viv). The activities of Żegota overlapped considerably with those of the other major organizations - the Jewish National Committee, that had some 5,600 Jews under its care; and the Bund, that cared for an additional 1,500. Among the three they were able to reach some 8,500 of the 28,000 Jews hiding in Warsaw, and perhaps another 1,000 Jews hiding elsewhere in Poland.

Żegota was supported by the Home Army, that provided facilities for forging German identification papers. Żegota also forged about 50,000 other documents such as marriage records, baptismal papers, death certificates and employment cards to help Jews in hiding pass as Christians.

Żegota's children's section in Warsaw, headed by Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker and activist, cared for 2,500 of the 9,000 Jewish children smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto. Many were placed with foster families, in public orphanages, church orphanages, and convents. Żegota sometimes paid for the children's care. At end of the war end Sendler tried to return the children to their parents, but nearly all of the parents had died at Treblinka.

Żegota petitioned the Polish Government in Exile and the Government Delegation for Poland numerous times, asking them to appeal to the Polish people's for help to the persecuted Jews.

Major incidents

Zofia Kossak-Szczucka was arrested in 1943 by a Gestapo unaware of the extent of her underground activities.

Operational difficulties

Under the German occupation, hiding or assisting Jewish refugees was punishable by death. According to Richard C. Lukas, "The number of Poles who perished at the hands of the Germans for aiding Jews" may have been as high as fifty thousand.

Żegota was under-funded. Out of at least $35 million and DM 20 million given to the main underground organizations by Western powers, only $250,000 were further allocated to Żegota.

Prominent activists

In a letter from February 26, 1977 Adolf Berman mentions the following activists as especially meritorious:

• Maria Grzegorzewska
• Irena Solska
• Janina Buchholtz-Bukolska
• Irena Sawicka
• Ewa Rybicka
• Stanisław and Maria Ossowskie
• Jan and Antonina Żabińskie
• Stefania Sempołowska
• Jan Wesołowski [pl]
• Sylwia Rzeczycka
• Regina Fleszar [pl]

Postwar recognition

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

See also

• Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust
• History of the Jews in Poland
• Timeline of Jewish-Polish history
• Polish resistance movement in World War II
• Occupation of Poland (1939–45)

Notes and references

Part of a series on the
Polish Underground State
History of Poland 1939–1945
Authorities Government Administration Parliament Courts
Political organizations Major parties Polish Socialist Party People's Party National Party Labour Party Minor parties Camp of National Unity Democratic Party Jewish Labour Bund Hashomer Hatzair Betar (Zionist youth) Opposition National Radical Camp Polish Workers' Party
Military organizations Home Army (AK) Service for Poland's Victory (SZP) Armed Resistance (ZWZ) Gray Ranks National Security Corps (PKB) Mostly integrated with Armed Resistance and Home Army Gwardia Ludowa WRN Peasant Battalions Partially integrated with Armed Resistance and Home Army National Military Organization National Armed Forces Camp of Fighting Poland Pomeranian Griffin Confederation of the Nation Non-integrated but recognizing authority of Armed Resistance and Home Army Jewish Combat Organization Jewish Military Union Opposition Armia Ludowa
Related topics Cultural activities Education History of Poland during 1939–1945
v t e

Specific

1. Gunnar S. Paulsson (2002). Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945. Yale University Press. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-300-09546-3.
2. ^ Yad Vashem Shoa Resource Center, Zegota
3. Władysław Bartoszewski: środowisko naturalne korzenie Michal Komar, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski Świat Ksia̜żki, page 238, 210
4. "The Council to Aid Jews "Żegota" | Polscy Sprawiedliwi". sprawiedliwi.org.pl (POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews). Warsaw. Retrieved 2018-06-22. The Council to Aid Jews, Żegota, was the only state-sponsored organization in occupied Europe which was set up with the aim of saving Jews. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
5. Golarz, Raymond J.; Golarz, Marion J. (2011-04-25). Sweet Land of Liberty. AuthorHouse. p. 95. ISBN 9781456746605. This was the only organization in German-occupied countries established specifically to save Jews.
6. Tadeusz Piotrowski (1997). "Assistance to Jews". Poland's Holocaust. McFarland & Company. p. 118. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
7. Browning, Christopher R. (2016-08). "From Humanitarian Relief to Holocaust Rescue: Tracy Strong Jr., Vichy Internment Camps, and the Maison des Roches in Le Chambon". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 30 (2): 211–246. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcw031. ISSN 8756-6583. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
8. Patricia Heberer (31 May 2011). Children during the Holocaust. Rowman Altamira. p. 324. ISBN 978-0-7591-1986-4.
9. Bartrop, Paul R.; Dickerman, Michael (2017-09-15). The Holocaust: An Encyclopedia and Document Collection [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO. p. 737. ISBN 9781440840845. Poland was the only country in Nazi-occupied Europe where such an organization, run jointly by Jews and non-Jews from a wide range of political movements, existed
10. ^ Robert Alvis (2016). White Eagle, Black Madonna: One Thousand Years of the Polish Catholic Tradition. Oxford University Press. pp. 212, 214. ISBN 0823271730.
11. 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.
12. Żydzi w Polsce: dzieje i kultura : leksykon Jerzy Tomaszewski, Andrzej Żbikowski Wydawnictwo Cyklady, 2001, page 552
13. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volumes 3-4 Israel Gutman Macmillan Library Reference USA, page 1730
14. Kirk, Heather (2004). A Drop of Rain. Dundurn. ISBN 9781894917100.
15. Segel, Harold B. (1996). Stranger in Our Midst: Images of the Jew in Polish Literature. Cornell University Press. ISBN 080148104X.
16. "Death Penalty for Aiding Jews — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". www.ushmm.org. Retrieved 2018-06-01.
17. Richard C. Lukas, Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust University Press of Kentucky, 1989; 201 pp.; p. 13; also in Richard C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation, 1939-1944, University Press of Kentucky, 1986; 300 pp.
18. Winstone, Martin (2014). The Dark Heart of Hitler's Europe: Nazi rule in Poland under the General Government. London: Tauris. pp. 181–182. ISBN 978-1-78076-477-1.
19. Holocaust: Responses to the persecution and mass murder of the Jews. Holocaust: critical concepts in historical studies. Vol. 5. book chapter by Antony Polonsky, edited by David Cesarani & Sarah Kavanaugh. London ; New York: Routledge. 2004. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-415-27509-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
20. ^ Contested memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and its aftermath. Joshua D. Zimmerman (ed.), chapter by Shmuel Krakowski. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 2003. p. 99. ISBN 978-0-8135-3158-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
21. Kermish, Joseph. "The Activities of the Council for Aid to Jews ("Żegota") In Occupied Poland". www.yadvashem.org. Retrieved 2018-06-20.
22. Jewish Resistance: Konrad Żegota Committee, Jewish Virtual Library

General

• Various authors. Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, Andrzej Friszke (ed.). "Żegota" Rada Pomocy Żydom 1942–1945 (in Polish). Warsaw: Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa. ISBN 83-916666-0-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• Various authors (2003). Joshua D. Zimmerman (ed.). Contested Memories: Poles and Jews During the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. Rutgers University Press. p. 336. ISBN 0-8135-3158-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• MS Nechama Tec (1986). When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505194-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• Tadeusz Piotrowski (1997). Poland's Holocaust. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-7864-0371-3. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• Gunnar S. Paulsson. Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945. Yale: Yale University Press. p. 2002. ISBN 0-300-09546-5. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• Irene Tomaszewski; Tecia Werbowski (1994). Zegota: The Rescue of Jews in Wartime Poland. Montreal: Price-Patterson. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
• Irene Tomaszewski; Tecia Werbowski (1994). Zegota: The Council to Aid Jews in Occupied Poland 1942-1945. Price-Patterson. ISBN 1-896881-15-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)

External links

• Excerpts from the book Żegota by Irena Tomaszewska & Tecia Werbowski
• Zegota - book and documentary film
• The Activities of the Council for Aid to Jews (“Żegota”) In Occupied Poland

• Jewish Polish history
• Polish Underground State
• 1942 establishments in Poland
• Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust
• 1945 disestablishments in Poland