Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
President Andrzej Duda has unveiled a monument in a small Polish town honouring over 30 Poles, most of them children, killed by the occupying Germans on one day in 1942 as a punishment for helping Jews.
Today’s ceremony was one of a number held around the country to mark Poland’s National Day of Remembrance for Poles Saving Jews Under German Occupation, an annual event established in 2018 on the initiative of Duda himself.
Prezydent @AndrzejDuda w #Ciepielów podczas uroczyści w Narodowy Dzień Pamięci Polaków ratujących Żydów pod okupacją niemiecką: Dziękuję Wam – spadkobiercom – za ten wielki czyn ludzkiej godności i braterstwa uwieczniony na tym pomniku. pic.twitter.com/7Irqxl0oNd
— Kancelaria Prezydenta (@prezydentpl) March 24, 2025
The new monument, featuring inscriptions in Polish, English and Hebrew, has been installed in Ciepielów, a town of just 770 people in central-eastern Poland. It commemorates the tragic events of 6 December 1942 in the nearby villages of Stary Ciepielów and Rekówka.
On that day, German police killed – by shooting or burning alive – 30 members of five families as punishment for helping Jews who had been hiding in the area after escaping ghettos and transports to Treblinka death camp.
Nineteen of the victims were aged under 18, including 10 who were aged six or younger. In addition, a 10-year-old girl who had been visiting one of the families was killed, as were two Jews who were discovered during searches.
The victims of the massacres “gave their lives for their friends, for other people, for human dignity, opposing the degeneration, cruelty and brutality of the German invaders who attacked our land and ruthlessly murdered its inhabitants”, said Duda at today’s ceremony in Ciepielów.
“It was not an easy decision: everyone knew perfectly well what would most likely await those who helped Jews if they were caught,” continued the president. The punishment for helping Jews in German-occupied Poland was death for the helper and their family.
“But this will to support another person, perhaps a sense of Christian duty, perhaps of brotherhood, or perhaps simply an inner sense of opposition, simply a peasant ‘no’ to persecution, made these families take in people seeking help,” added Duda.
"Germans have gaps in their memory" regarding WWII, says Poland's foreign minister. "They know about the Holocaust but have forgotten what they did to the Polish population."
He called on Berlin to compensate Poland for the "enormous losses" it suffered https://t.co/3D71btDBLg
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) February 12, 2024
It is estimated that almost 1,000 Poles were killed for helping Jews during the war. Meanwhile, well over 7,000 Poles – more than any other national group – have been honoured by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations for risking their lives to save Jews.
The National Day of Remembrance for Poles Saving Jews Under German Occupation is held on 24 March to mark the anniversary of the 1944 killing of the Ulmas, a Polish family executed for hiding Jews.
“This holiday is a monument to the solidarity, immense suffering and sacrifice of our compatriots who remained faithful to the highest ideals and did not renounce them even in the face of mortal danger,” wrote Duda on social media this morning.
Over 30,000 pilgrims and Poland’s most senior officials attended a ceremony to mark the beatification – a step on the path to possible sainthood – of a Polish family murdered by the Nazi German occupiers for hiding Jews in their home during the Holocaust https://t.co/QhsQBG51R3
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 10, 2023
He was joined on the trip to Ciepielów by Karol Nawrocki, the head of Poland’s state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) who is currently standing for May’s presidential election to choose Duda’s successor. Nawrocki is supported by the conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, with which Duda is also aligned.
“This is a story not only about heroes, but also about perpetrators,” said Nawrocki at the ceremony unveiling the new monument. “We are here because we must not forget. This is a monument of tribute to our nation, to heroes and victims, but also a monument of contempt for the German perpetrators.”
The idea of building the monument in Ciepielów first appeared in 1992, on the 50th anniversary of the massacres, when a cornerstone was laid by then-Polish Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak and Israeli Ambassador Miron Gordon.
However, subsequently the project went no further until being revived in 2017, when it received support from the then-PiS government and IPN, with the latter sharing the costs of the monument with the local authorities.
💬 – Miłosierdzie, wartości chrześcijańskie, miłość do drugiego człowieka sprawiły, że Polacy byli gotowi do pomocy Żydom i byli gotowi oddawać za to swoje życie. To opowieść nie tylko o bohaterach, ale też o sprawcach, którzy w barbarzyński sposób zamordowali 30 osób, w tym 19… pic.twitter.com/xUjVgX4OeM
— Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (@ipngovpl) March 24, 2025
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Marek Borawski/KPRP
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
