History Misjudged: Poland’s Forgotten Role in Saving Jews

It is often repeated, especially in certain circles today, that Poles did not do enough to save Jews during the German occupation of Poland, yet such a claim does not withstand scrutiny when placed against the weight of the historical record. In reality, there has been a persistent lack of recognition for a nation that did more to assist Jews, often at the highest personal cost, than any other occupied country in Europe, and this is not a matter of national pride alone but a factual truth supported by extensive documentation in both Jewish and Polish firsthand accounts.

The purpose of addressing this subject is not only to present historical evidence but also to confront assumptions, to examine moral responsibility, to call for accountability and self-reflection, and ultimately to insist upon justice. The Polish resistance movement saved more Jewish lives during the Holocaust than any other Western Allied organization or government, a fact that is widely overlooked in popular narratives. Poland was also the first to issue repeated and urgent warnings to the world about the unfolding German genocide, yet those warnings were met with indifference or disbelief. Jan Karski, an emissary of the Polish underground, risked his life by entering the Warsaw Ghetto and a German transit camp, then made the dangerous journey to the West, where he personally met with President Roosevelt. Instead of addressing the horrors Karski described, Roosevelt chose to speak about his interest in horses.

Karski also met with Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, who was himself Jewish, and who, while acknowledging Karski’s honesty, told him that he could not believe what he had heard. The Polish government-in-exile, based in London, did not relent in its efforts to warn the Allied governments and the Western press, issuing reports such as the one delivered by Edward Raczyński on 9 December 1942, which historian Walter Laqueur described as the most comprehensive survey of the “Final Solution” available at the time, noting that no other Allied government was remotely as outspoken then or for a long time afterward. From 1942 onward, the Polish government sent regular messages to the West, stating that the number of Jews murdered by the Germans had already exceeded one million and urging immediate action to save thousands more, yet these pleas were met with silence.

Nor were the Polish efforts confined to words. The government-in-exile provided financial aid to Jews in occupied Poland, while certain Jewish organizations in the West did not take such action until after the war. Witold Pilecki, a captain in the Polish Army, deliberately allowed himself to be arrested and sent to Auschwitz in order to gather intelligence and build a resistance network within the camp. After escaping, he compiled a detailed report and appealed for action, only to be ignored. After the war, he was captured, tortured, and executed by the Stalinist regime in Poland, his story largely unknown to the world for decades.

Within occupied Poland, the underground organization Żegota was established specifically to aid Jews, a body unique in all of occupied Europe. It provided false documents, shelter, and financial support, and is credited with saving between forty and fifty thousand Jewish lives, all under the constant threat of torture and execution. Remarkably, despite the dangers, no member of Żegota ever betrayed the organization under interrogation. The Polish underground also supported the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by supplying arms, equipment, and logistical assistance, and several Poles were killed while aiding the Jewish fighters.

In occupied Poland, the German authorities imposed the death penalty on anyone who provided assistance to Jews, a punishment that extended not only to the individual but also to their family, and in some cases to entire villages. This was not the case in other occupied countries. It is worth asking why such an extreme measure was necessary in Poland if the German perception was that Poles were broadly hostile to Jews; the reality is that such penalties were imposed precisely because so many Poles were willing to help.

Yad Vashem officially recognizes about seven thousand Polish Righteous Among the Nations, yet this figure does not reflect the full scale of Polish aid, which some historians estimate involved up to three million people in various capacities. As many as fifty thousand Poles were killed for helping Jews, and countless others died alongside the Jews they sheltered, their names lost to history. The Ulma family of Markowa is among the best-known examples; despite poverty, Józef and Wiktoria Ulma sheltered eight Jews, all of whom were murdered along with the Ulmas and their six children, with Wiktoria in the seventh month of pregnancy at the time.

Historian Gunnar Paulsson has estimated that twenty-eight thousand Jews escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and found refuge outside its walls, aided by between seventy and ninety thousand non-Jewish Poles. Without such aid, the ghetto would have starved much earlier, even with the severe risks involved. Paulsson also noted that fear and mistrust of Poles within parts of the Jewish community may have cost Jewish lives, a tragic consequence of prewar cultural and linguistic divisions. Many Jews in Poland did not speak the Polish language or understand local customs, which created additional barriers to seeking or receiving help.

It is important to acknowledge that within the ghetto, Jewish Councils known as Judenräte, established in September 1939, cooperated with the Germans in carrying out policies long before the “Final Solution” was formally implemented. The Jewish police, numbering in the thousands, carried out deportations by placing their fellow Jews on trains bound for the camps. While some call this a “choiceless choice,” contemporary accounts describe corruption, abuse, and opportunism within these bodies, reminding us that no community is free of moral failings.

Yet in public discourse, it remains acceptable to shame and condemn Poles collectively, while other ethnicities are shielded from similar criticism—a moral double standard that is ethically indefensible. In recent years, inflammatory statements have even been made by respected religious figures, such as a rabbi who claimed that Poles massacred Jews “with glee.” Such words not only distort the historical record but inflict pain on the families of those Poles who risked everything to save Jewish lives.

The historical reality is that Polish collaboration with the Germans was statistically negligible. Historian Magnus Brechtken has calculated that out of roughly twenty-eight million ethnic Poles, only twenty-eight thousand could be counted as collaborators, representing just 0.1 percent of the population.

Viewed objectively, the evidence leads to one conclusion: Poland as a nation did far more to aid Jews during the Holocaust than it is given credit for, and without Polish assistance, many Jewish families alive today would not exist. Before making accusations that condemn an entire people, it is essential to consider the facts, the context, and the unimaginable risks involved. In the darkest of times, many Poles acted with compassion and courage when doing so meant certain death, and these acts deserve remembrance rather than vilification.

By Edward Reid

(https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=823077066901565&set=a.159252953283983)