Pole Who Helped Save Jews Makes Donation to Jewish Museum

A Polish man who helped save Jews from the Holocaust has donated World War II documents and distinctions he received from Israel to a Jewish history museum opening in Warsaw.

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The Museum of the History of Polish Jews said Wednesday that 91-year-old Wladyslaw Bartoszewski has offered fake documents of Dr. Leon Feiner, a Jewish resistance leader, a ring made in the Lodz Ghetto in 1942, wartime media reports about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, his own medal of the Righteous Among Nations, a title given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust, and an Israeli honorary citizenship document.

Like many other non-Jewish Poles, Bartoszewski himself was imprisoned at the German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz from 1940-1941. He was among the very few freed, and later co-founded the clandestine Zegota organization, which gave Jews fake documents and placed them with Polish families.

After communism fell, he served twice as Poland's foreign minister in 1995 and 2000-2001.

The multi-media core exhibition at the museum is to open next year and will document the thousand-year-long history of Jewish life and culture in Poland. The building is already open to the visitors, serving as a cultural and educational center offering temporary exhibits, films, lectures and other activities.