Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz and Lithuanian parliamentary speaker Viktoras Pranckietis hold LJC calendars for the new year 5779 dedicated to the children of the Holocaust

To mark the 75th anniversary of the destruction of the Vilnius ghetto and to celebrate the Year of Irena Senderlowa, the embassy of the Republic of Poland and the Polish Institute in Vilnius in cooperation with the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the Lithuanian parliament presented the exhibit “Żegota: The Council to Aid Jews” at the Lithuanian parliament. The exhibit was made by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance. It was first shown at the Ninth Fort in Kaunas earlier this year.

The Council to Aid Jews was a Polish underground humanitarian organization operating during World War II as an institution of the Polish Government in Exile and provided aid to Jews inside and outside the ghettos. The organization went by the code name Żegota. The exhibit details the founding and activities of Żegota and commemorates its major heroes and some of those whom it rescued. Risking their lives, the civilian conspirators rescued at least several thousand people from death. Poles risked their lives to save their compatriots and opposed the Nazis’ doctrine of hate. In Poland, unlike Western Europe, people were executed for helping Jews. Of the more than 26,500 people recognized by Israel as Righteous Gentiles, more than 6,700 are Poles. The true number in Poland, as in Lithuania, is probably higher and many Righteous Gentiles remain unrecognized.

The exhibit opened with a ceremony in Building III of the Lithuanian parliament at 4:00 P.M. on September 13, 2018, and was attended by Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz, Lithuanian MP Arūnas Gelūnas and Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, among others. The exhibit was organized in Lithuania by Polish ambassador to Lithuania Urszula Doroszewska, ambassadorial advisor Marcin Łapczyński, the Polish Institute in Vilnius, the Lithuanian Jewish Community and the parliament of the Republic of Lithuania.