National Day of Remembrance of Poles Saving Jews President Andrzej Duda at the ceremony in Markowa

During the Markowa celebration in the province of Subcarpathian President Andrzej Duda reminded that seven years have passed since the opening of the local Museum of Poles Saving Jews during World War II. The Ulma family. – This is a very important museum. A museum commemorating a family that lived and died in this place, in fact giving their lives for helping another man, their fellow citizens. Poles of Jewish nationality, who lived on this land with them at the time when the German invader came here, seized this land and began his planned action of destroying the Jewish nation, its elimination in a ruthless, brutal way – he stated.

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He added that “at that time there were people in Poland who had extraordinary courage, who had deep in their hearts the ideals of humanity, respect for life, respect for other people, love of neighbor, this Christian, great ethos of the Republic, this Commonwealth of many nations, which together for years after it regained independence in 1918, they co-created – free, independent, sovereign Poland.

– Imbued with these ideals so deeply that they were not afraid. They were not afraid to provide help, shelter, despite the terrible threat that everyone was aware of at the time, Duda pointed out.

The President noted that “in Poland, helping Jews under German occupation during World War II by the German occupiers and torturers was punishable by death.” – Very often in Western Europe and in the United States they do not know about it – he added.

– No prison, no deportation, no punishment, not even a concentration camp. The death penalty was threatened, brutally and ruthlessly carried out. Virtually no trial, no indictment, no trial, no rules whatsoever. Thousands of Poles – out of a million, as we estimate, who helped Jews in hiding at that time – were murdered in this way, most often together with their Jewish neighbors and charges – he said.

As he said, “we do not know about many crimes committed then, because many of them remain unknown.” – No archives, no documents, no witnesses. The one that took place here, in Markowa, survived in memory, in documents and is one of the most monstrous acts that were committed at that time. A large family, the parents of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, were murdered together with six children and a seventh unborn child in the mother’s womb, he recalled.

The president recalled that the Ulma family was shot by German gendarmes for helping the Jewish Goldman family. – In fact Germany murdered 17 people: two parents, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, their six children, one unborn child and eight people they sheltered. It was done at night, in the morning of March 24, 1944, in a planned, bestial, brutal manner – he recalled.

Duda stressed that “many villagers witnessed this.” He added that “not only the village of Markowa, but also its surroundings knew that this crime had taken place, that the death penalty was carried out in Ulma, and practically in all towns around there were Polish families who hid Jews, who helped Jews, because Jews, Many citizens of the Republic of Poland lived in these areas.

The president said that “here, in Markowa, despite the crime and terror it must have caused, those Jews who were hidden mostly survived. People did not stop helping.”

– We are standing in front of the wall of memory, on which there are nameplates, and these are families only from here, from this region, from this land, from Podkarpacie – said Duda. In his opinion, “this is a testimony to what those days were like at that time and how many people in the then occupied Polish lands were able to behave decently, whose love of neighbor, Christian values, ethics were stronger than the fear of death, not only their own, but also own family.”

He emphasized that “all of Poland, all of this land which until 1939 was the Republic of Poland, was occupied.” – Poland in the state sense did not exist at that time and there were no Polish authorities that would collaborate with the occupier, there were no Polish authorities, no Polish official institutions that would in any way participate in this terrible crime that the Germans committed against the Jewish nation.

– We were all victims of the Second World War, Hitler’s terror. Almost six million Polish citizens died during World War II, three million of whom were of Jewish descent. Our two nations, our state (…) experienced a terrible tragedy, but in the official and institutional sense it has always stood up for all its citizens – he noted. The President added that within the Polish government-in-exile there was the Council to Aid Jews – Żegota. “Over two hundred orders and congregations” in occupied Poland were also involved in helping Jews.