New documentary shows how Polish diplomats helped Jews in WWII
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
31.01.2019 08:30
A new documentary that shows how Polish diplomats helped Jews during World War II premiered in Warsaw on Wednesday.
Poland's Ambassador to Switzerland Jakub Kumoch (left), filmmaker Robert Kaczmarek (centre) and Mateusz Szpytma, deputy head of the Institute of National Remembrance (right), during a press conference in Warsaw on Wednesday. Photo: PAP/Rafał Guz
The film, directed by Robert Kaczmarek and entitled Paszporty Paragwaju (Passports of Paraguay), documents the efforts of a group of Polish wartime diplomats based in Bern, Switzerland, who fabricated Latin American passports for Jews from ghettos in German-occupied Poland to save them from the Holocaust.
The group, led by Aleksander Ładoś, Poland's ambassador to Switzerland at the time, is credited with helping hundreds of Jews escape from Poland at a time when the country was under Nazi German occupation, public broadcaster Polish Radio has reported.
Poland's Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said in late December that Ładoś was a role model for all those working in international relations, a “man of courage and diplomatic talent” who skillfully navigated the intricacies of wartime politics to save people's lives.
The documentary, which premiered at Warsaw’s Muranów cinema on Wednesday before an audience including Poland's current ambassador to Switzerland, Jakub Kumoch, has been produced by the government-affiliated Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), Polish Radio reported.
It quoted the IPN's Mateusz Szpytma as saying that his institute was in talks with public television broadcaster TVP to show the documentary to audiences nationwide on March 24, a new national memorial day to honour Poles who saved Jews during World War II.
(gs/pk)
Source: Polish Radio