On 12th of February 2019 in the Belvedere with the participation of the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda and the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Culture, prof. Piotr Gliński, the presentation of the Eiss Archive – one of the largest collections documenting the activities of Polish diplomacy in favor of saving Jews from the Holocaust during World War II took place.
Participation in the official ceremonies was taken by: the President of Poland Andrzej Duda, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Culture Piotr Gliński, Deputy Ministers of Culture Magdalena Gawin and Paweł Lewandowski, Polish Ambassador to Switzerland Jakub Kumoch, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Piotr Cywiński and Director of the Treblinka Museum Edward Kopówka . Also present were representatives of Israel, Ukraine, Jewish organizations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Institute of National Remembrance; Polish Righteous Among the Nations also came to the ceremony.
The name of the archive comes from the name of Chaim Eiss, a Zurich merchant from Ustrzyki. It belonged to the so-called The Berne Group, which under the leadership of Aleksander Ładoś, provided Jews with fake passports of Latin American countries (including Paraguay, El Salvador, Peru, Haiti, Honduras), which as documents of neutral states were to protect European Jews from deportation to extermination camps.
The collection of documents will be forwarded to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.
Information on the event from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage:
http://www.mkidn.gov.pl/pages/posts/prezentacja-archiwum-eissa-9276.php