DVD: Zegota: Council for Aid to Jews

Żegota: Council for Aid to Jews in German-Occupied Poland (1942-1945)

Zofia Kossak Szczucka

Prof. Zbigniew Brzezinski writes "Zegota is the story of extraordinary
heroism...tantamount to 'Schindler's List' multiplied a hundred-fold."

What is Zegota?
The Polish Government-in-Exile (based in London, England) was the first Allied government during World War II to bring to the attention of the free world Hitler's intention to annihilate the Jews of Poland. Jan Karski and other representatives of the Polish government, bearing eye witness accounts of German Nazi atocities on Polish soil, urged the leaders of the United States and Great Britain to respond to the crises by helping the Jews of Poland. Frustrated by the refusal of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchil to help the Jews of Poland, the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Polish population in Poland set in motion their own effort to help the Jews of Poland by forming the clandestine "Council for Aid to Jews" (Rada Pomocy Żydom), code name "Żegota". This was the only government sponsored social welfare agency in German occupied Europe established to rescue Jews. Poland's Zegota provided hiding places and false identity documents to Jewish men, women and children. Their heroic efforts saved thousands of innocent Jews in German occupied Poland.

THE FILM
Using archival photographs and film footage, together with interviews first recorded for the 1992 film "Zegota - A Time to Remember" the following documentary tells the story of the desperate plight of the Jews of Poland and the conditions of terror under which Christian Poles tried to help the Jews of Poland. Polish Zegota participants, Jewish survivors and Polish and Jewish historians recall and reflect on the unparalleled crime of genocide committed by Nazi Germany, and of the extraordinary courage of the Polish Christians who risked their lives trying to save the Jews of Poland from extermination.

At Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Memorial Museum, more than 40 percent of the "Righteous Gentiles" recognized for their rescue of Jews during World War II are Christian Poles. It is the highest percentage of all the national groups who aided Jews in German occupied Europe.

WATCH: "Zegota: Council for aid to Jews in Occupied Poland (1942-1945)"
The documentary is only 28 minutes long. Please watch all 3 parts.