Polish Righteous in the USA
Between 16 and 23 April, a Polish delegation was in the United States of America. The Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the President Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, five representatives of Righteous among the Nations and two representatives of the Association of “Children of the Holocaust” met there with Polish and Jewish communities.
The delegation participated in several events, such as: the celebrations of Holocaust Memorial Day at the Washington Capitol with the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Elie Wiesel; the official renaming ceremony of the intersection of Madison Avenue and 37th Street on Manhattan to bear the name of Jan Karski, a famous courier of the Polish Underground State; meetings in the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in New York and at Georgetown University.
The five Poles who visited Washington and whom the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem has deemed worthy of bearing the title of Righteous among the Nations are: Anna Stupnicka-Bando, Ireneusz Rajchowski, Alicja Schnepf née Szczepaniak, Tadeusz Stankiewicz and Józef Walaszczyk. Lech Kaczyński decorated them with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Poland Reborn in recognition of their heroic efforts and the extraordinary courage with which they had been saving Jews during World War II, as well as for their remarkable merits in protecting human dignity and rights. The President has been awarding the highest state distinctions to Polish Righteous for three years.
This visit was an opportunity to spread the truth of the behaviour of Poles during the Holocaust in American media, in which negative stereotypes concerning Poland can sometimes still be observed.