TIRANA, Sept. 23 – Stories of aid extended to Jews during WWII by Poles will be showcased in an exhibition in Tirana. “They risked their lives, Poles who saved Jews” is an exhibition featuring the phenomenon of Polish rescuers. It presents their stories, faces and motivation as well as the historical context, circumstances and the scale of the help given.
The exhibition is based on a unique collection of testimonies from the Righteous Among the Nations as well as Holocaust survivors gathered within the framework of the Museum of History of the Polish Jews oral history project “Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten History.”
In occupied Poland, unlike in the countries of Western Europe, helping Jews was punishable by death. Despite this fact, there were Poles who stood up to evil and saved Jews. In the name of helping others, they risked not only their own lives, but also those of their families. These rescuers managed to save tens of thousands of Polish Jews. Many of them were honored for their heroism with the state title of Righteous Among the Nations, awarded by the Yad Vashem Institute in Israel.
The exhibition “They risked their lives – Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust” was prepared by the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (Polin) in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews opened its doors to the public in April 2013. It currently functions as a cultural and educational center with a rich cultural program, including temporary exhibitions, films, debates, workshops, performances, concerts, lectures and much more. The core exhibition, presenting the thousand-year history of Polish Jews, has been opened on October 28, 2014.
The Museum stands in what was once the heart of Jewish Warsaw – an area which the Nazis turned into the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.
The exhibition is scheduled to remain open at the National History Museum in Tirana from September 28 to October 4.
