At the 24th of March we celebrate a public holiday – National Remembrance Day of Poles rescuing Jews under German Occupation.
The chosen date is a symbolic one. At the 24th of March 1944 the Germans executed the Ulma family from the village of Markowa at Podkarpacie (southeast Poland). At this day Józef Ulma, his pregnant wife Wiktoria, their six children and eight Jews who were hidden from families of Didner, Gruenfeld and Goldman lost their lives.
At the 20th of March 2018 President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda signed the act establishing the National Remembrance Day of Poles rescuing Jews under German Occupation.
That day was established “in an honor to Polish Citizens – heroes that, in act of a heroic bravery, unparalelled valor, compassion and interpersonal solidarity, loyal to the highest ethical values, orders of Christian charity and the ethos of sovereign Republic of Poland, rescued their Jewish brothers and sisters from the Holocaust planned and realized by the German invaders”.
On that day, in the nearby to Treblinka town of Sadowne, there will be ceremonies commemorating its inhabitants, who during the occupation helped the hiding Jews. The Lubkiewicz family – Marianna, Leon and their son Stefan, who were murdered for selling bread to two Jewish women – will be commemorated.
Information about the event on the website of the Pilecki Institute:
More information about the Lubkiewicz family from Sadowne is available in the publication entitled: “I will give them a name for ever (Isaiah 56,5). Poles from the Treblinka area who saved Jews. “Edited by E. Kopówka, Rev. P. Rytel-Andrianik.
We also invite you to visit the temporary exhibition available in our museum “My Jewish parents, my Polish parents”. It tells the story of Jewish children brought up by Polish parents.