Memorial Planned in Warsaw Honoring Poles Who Saved Jews During Shoah

By JTA September 9, 2014

Organizers have announced a design competition for a memorial in Warsaw to Poles who saved Jews during World War II.

Polish-born Holocaust survivor and philanthropist Sigmund Rolat, of the Remembrance and Future Foundation, announced the competition at a news conference in Warsaw on Monday.

Rolat said the designs would be judged by an international jury and the winner will be announced in April. The memorial is scheduled to be dedicated in the fall of 2015.

Rolat said the project would be financed entirely by Jews in Israel and other countries. “This memorial will be an expression of gratitude, not of the [Polish] government or the city [of Warsaw], but of those Jews who were saved,” he said, according to Polish Radio.

More than 6,000 Poles have been named Righteous Among Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel. The monument is to be located on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, near the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, whose grand opening will take place Oct. 28. Plans for the monument were originally announced a year ago.

The Warsaw City Council in March approved plans and appropriated funding for a second monument to Polish Righteous, this one in the shape of a giant winding ribbon inscribed with the names of Poles who saved Jews, to be located next to the All Saints Church on Grzybowski Square, not far from the Nozyk synagogue.

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