Other Polish Diplomats Involved in Rescue
Prepared by Eric Saul
Tadeusz Brzezinski, Polish Consul General in Prague, 1931-1936
Consul General Tadeusz Brzezinski issued visas to hundreds of Jewish refugees to leave Germany and emigrate overseas. Later, Brzezinski became the Polish Consul General in Montreal, Canada. While in Canada, he helped the Jewish community to help Jewish refugees enter the country. Brzezinski worked with Victor Podoski, the Polish Ambassador to Canada. Brezezinski’s son was Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was the National Security Advisor under President Carter. His grandson was the US Ambassador to Sweden in the Obama administration.
[Abella, Irving & Harold Troper. None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948 (3rd Ed.). (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2000), pp. 82-83, 99.]
Feliks Chiczewski, Polish consul in Lipsk, Germany, 1938-39?
Feliks Chiczewski was the Polish consul in Lipsk, Germany. He prevented Polish Jews from being expelled from Germany by allowing them to seek refuge in the Polish consulate building and garden. At least half of the Jews in the town were given refuge during the time of the deportations.
[Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 1727.]
Jan Karski,* Polish Diplomat, courier
Polish diplomat-courier Jan Karski was a witness to the conditions in the Warsaw ghetto and the Izbica camp near the Belzec death camp. Karski prepared written eyewitness accounts of the German atrocities in Nazi occupied Poland. Later, he was smuggled out of Poland and into the United States, where he reported to US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. Frankfurter arranged for Karski to report to President Roosevelt. Frankfurter was skeptical of the report: “I did not say that he was lying, I said that I could not believe him. There is a difference.” Karski gave hundreds of talks to organizations all over the United States and Great Britain to bring pressure to intervene to save Jews from the Holocaust. Karski was declared a Righteous Among the Nations in 1975 and made an honorary citizen of the state of Israel.
[Karski, Jan. Story of a Secret State. (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999). Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 10, 481, 787, 1749. Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 13, 109, 123, 379, 481, 485, 486.]
Victor Podoski, Polish Ambassador to Canada
Victor Podoski was the Polish Ambassador to Canada. He requested the admission to Canada “for the duration of the war” of 2,000 Polish refugees, many of them government officials. This request included more than 100 Jewish children. Eventually, Polish refugees were let into Canada.
[Abella, Irving & Harold Troper. None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948 (3rd Ed.). (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2000), pp. 77, 80, 82-90, 93, 95-96, 99, 104, 109, 111, 116-117.]
Count Tadeusz Romer, Polish Ambassador to Japan, 1937-1941
The Polish Ambassador to Japan representing the government in exile, Count Tadeusz Romer, served as the ambassador from 1937-1941. Though Poland was conquered by Germany and Russia, Japan recognized the Polish government-in-exile in London until October 1941. Up till that time, Romer helped Jews stranded in Japan to find safe havens. Romer issued more than 300 visas to Polish Jews. He wrote to his fellow diplomats in Canada, Great Britain and Australia: “It is…not fitting to enquire whether this or that Polish refugee is Jew or Christian but only whether or not he is a faithful and devoted servant of his country and thereby of the common cause of the Allies.”
[USHMM, Flight and Rescue, 2001.]
Wojciech Rychlewicz, Polish Consul General in Turkey. The Polish Consul General in Turkey, Wojciech Rychlewicz, issued a number of fake baptismal certificates to Jews to pass freely through Turkey. He worked with Antoni Wojdas SDB, who was a priest in Polonezkoy/Adampol, a Polish village in Turkey. Wojdas verified the forged baptismal certificates, which were issued in Istanbul. The priest asserted that the people who were issued the baptismal certificates were part of his congregation, and were thus Catholic. Surviving examples of the baptismal certificates indicate that the Jews were from Zakopane and Bielsko, Poland. (A story by @eldadbeck today in @IsraelHayomHeb.)
Henryk Slawik,* Polish Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest, Hungary, 1944
Henryk Slawik was the Polish Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944. He issued thousands of documents certifying that Polish Jewish refugees in Budapest were Christians. One hundred of these were children, and were put in a Catholic orphanage. Slawik was caught and deported to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, where he was murdered. Slawik was honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 1977.
[Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948). Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).]
J. Weytko, Polish Embassy Official?, London, 1944
J. Weytko, of the Polish embassy in London, approached Henderson and Randall of the British Foreign Office on behalf of Jews in Nazi occupied Europe in general and Polish nationals in Hungary.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 1289 fn 223.]
Zimmerman, Polish diplomat stationed in Budapest, 1944-45
Zimmerman was a Jewish Polish diplomat who worked clandestinely in Budapest. He worked under Henryk Slawik.
Lévai, Jenö. Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry. (Central European Times Publishing, 1948). Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).
Polish Ambassador to Turkey, 1943?
The Polish Ambassador to Turkey gave 542 visas to Jews stranded in Teheran, according to Yishuv rescuer Chaim Barlas.
[Laqueur, Walter (Ed.) and Judith Tydor Baumel (Assoc. Ed.). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), p. 642.]
Polish Consul in Marseilles, France, 1940?
The Polish consul in Marseilles, France, provided Polish passports to Varian Fry and Albert Hirschmann of the Emergency Rescue Committee. These documents were necessary in order to get refugees safe passage through Spain to Lisbon.
[Fry, Varian. Surrender on Demand. (New York: Random House, 1945), pp. 40-41. Marino, Andy. A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), p. 141. Ebel, Miriam Davenport. An Unsentimental Education: A Memoir by Miriam Davenport Ebel. (1999).]
Polish Representative to the Holy See, 1942
The Polish representative to the Holy See, along with the Belgian and Yugoslavian representatives, whose countries were also occupied by Germany, submitted a joint demarche on September 12, 1943. This demarche asked the Pope to condemn Nazi atrocities in their occupied areas.
[Tittmann, Harold H., Jr., Harold H. Tittmann III (Ed.). Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II. (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 2004), pp. 117-120.]
Others Who Collaborated with Polish Diplomats:
Monsignor Philippe Bernardini, Papal Nuncio and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Bern, Switzerland, 1942-45
Monsignor Philippe Bernardini, Papal Nuncio in Bern, Switzerland, repeatedly intervened on behalf of Jewish refugees who were stranded in Switzerland after fleeing Germany and Nazi occupied countries. This prevented them from being deported from Switzerland during the war. Bernardini placed couriers of the Vatican diplomatic service at the disposal of Jewish relief agencies. They were thus able to issue visas through Ambassador Lados and Dr. Julius Kuhl in countries that had severed diplomatic relations with Poland. Bernardini personally intervened on behalf of the Jews of Slovakia. In addition, Bernardini helped Jewish relief agencies to save Jews by acquiring and distributing fictitious South American passports. Bernardini also worked with the Red Cross to obtain recognition of these documents by South American governments.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 289. Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984), pp. 22, 54, 57, 78-76, 104, 122, 125, 184, 198. Vatican (Holy See). Actes et documents du Saint-Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. 12 vols. (1966-1981). Morley, John. Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews during the Holocaust, 1939-1943. (New York: Ktav, 1980), pp. 31-32, 35, 40, 60-61, 67-68, 79-80, 84, 117, 135-136, 140-142, 203, 212. Rothkirchen, Livia. “Vatican Policy and the ‘Jewish Problem’ in ‘Independent’ Slovakia (1939-1945).” Yad Vashem Studies, 6 (1967), pp. 40. Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1987), pp. 190, 197-199, 202-203. Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 63, 249, 252, 365n.7. Pawlikowski, John T. The Catholic response to the Holocaust: Institutional perspectives. In Berenbaum, Michael, and Abraham J. Peck (Eds.). The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined, pp. 551-565. (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 557. Conway, John S. “Records and documents of the Holy See relating to the Second World War.” Yad Vashem Studies, 15 (1983), 327-345. Tittmann, Harold H., Jr., Harold H. Tittman III (Ed.). Inside the Vatican of Pius XII: The Memoir of an American Diplomat During World War II. (New York: Image Books Doubleday, 2004), pp. 36-37.]
Isaac Sternbuch and Recha Sternbuch, Swiss Representatives of the Va’ad ha-Hatsala, American Union of Orthodox Rabbis
The Sternbuch’s were Orthodox Jews living in Bern, Switzerland. They ran a major Jewish rescue operation out of Switzerland throughout the war. Thousands of Jews were saved by the Sternbuch’s. Recha Sternbuch was arrested for her activities by Swiss authorities and was later released from jail. They worked with Chinese Consul General Dr. Feng Shan Ho, from his office in Vienna, and with Polish Ambassador Alexander Lados and his assistant Julius Kuhl, from their office in Bern.
[Isaac Sternbuch: Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 68-71, 190, 201, 204, 209-210, 253, 247, 250-251, 255, 257-258, 261, 287, 365n.13. Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1987). Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984).]
[Recha Sternbuch: Penkower, Monty Noam. The Jews Were Expendable: Free World diplomacy and the Holocaust. (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), pp. 190, 248-249, 254, 256, 261-262, 278. Kranzler, David. Thy Brother’s Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust. (Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1987). Friedenson, Joseph, and David Kranzler, forward by Julius Kuhl. Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust. (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1984).]
Wikipedia entry (excerpt):
She had access to the Polish diplomatic pouch and was able to send coded cables to her contacts in Va’ad Hatzalah (Rescue Committee) in the United States and Turkey. One important use of this channel was the Sternbuch’s alerting the New York branch of Va’ad Hatzalah, on 2 September 1942, to the horrors of the Holocaust, a message reinforced by the subsequent 8 August 1942 Gerhardt-Riegner cable. It was sent to alert American Jewry to the reality of the Holocaust and led to a meeting of 34 Jewish organizations. The Polish diplomatic pouch was also used to send secret messages, money to Jews in Nazi occupied Europe and as bribes for rescue.
Recha Sternbuch also developed good connections with the Papal Nuncio to Switzerland, Monsignor Phillippe Bernadini, dean of the Swiss diplomatic community. He gave her access to Vatican couriers for sending money and messages to Jewish and resistance organizations in Nazi occupied Europe. Recha Sternbuch was among the first to obtain South American identity papers and distribute them to Jews whose life was endangered by the Nazis.
Antoni Wojdas, priest in Polonezkoy/Adampol, Turkey. The Polish Consul General in Turkey, Wojciech Rychlewicz, issued a number of fake baptismal certificates to Jews to pass freely through Turkey. He worked with Antoni Wojdas SDB, who was a priest in Polonezkoy/Adampol, a Polish village in Turkey. Wojdas verified the forged baptismal certificates, which were issued in Istanbul. The priest asserted that the people who were issued the baptismal certificates were part of his congregation, and were thus Catholic. Wojdas was helped by some Polish families living in Polonezkoy. Some of the baptismal certificates were issued to Jews from Zakopane and Bielsko, Poland. (A story by @eldadbeck today in @IsraelHayomHeb.)