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Shoah: Pilecki, Anders should be Righteous Among the Nations
Poland's ambassador Anna Maria Anders calls on Yad Vashem
27 January, 07:40
(ANSA) - PESCARA, 27 GEN - Declaring two Poles who helped
save many Jews from death as Righteous Among the Nations: Witold
Pilecki, who volunteered to be captured and taken to Auschwitz
to point out its horrors, and General Wladyslaw Anders,
commander of the Polish 2nd Army Corps, who participated in the
liberation of Italy. Poland's ambassador to Italy, Anna Maria
Anders, launched this appeal from Pescara, speaking at the
Memorial Day event dedicated to Pilecki at the 'Luisa
d'Annunzio' Conservatory of Music, with the premiere of 'Petite
suite Pilecki' by historian and composer Marco Patricelli.
"In this venue, where music can improve us, as it speaks a universal language that touches our hearts - Anders said - I launched an appeal so that Witold Pilecki may be declared a Righteous Among the Nations, for what he did and for his moral legacy. My father, like Pilecki, was also tortured in prison at the Lubianka in Moscow. Nevertheless, he managed to rescue from the Soviet gulags many Poles imprisoned during the 1939 war, women and children. Among them were no less than 4,000 Jews who would otherwise have suffered a sad fate. When the Polish army, after a stage in Persia, arrived in Palestine, General Anders shielded the protests of the British authorities because he consciously turned a blind eye to the desertions of the Polish Jews who were going to form the army for the establishment of the State of Israel, and among them, Menachem Begin, future Nobel Peace Prize winner. Other Polish Jews would instead fight in Italy 'for our and your freedom,' and we can see the Stars of David in war cemeteries commemorating their sacrifice. All this would not have been possible without my father, who died an exile in London in 1970 and is buried alongside his Catholic, Jewish and Orthodox soldiers at Monte Cassino." "Poland - the ambassador underlined - has the highest number of Righteous among the nations, even though among all European peoples, the Poles were the most exposed to the cruel regulations of the Nazi authorities. Yet there are more than 7,000 who saved the Jews precisely to save the world. I believe that a small place is also there for Witold Pilecki and Wladyslaw Anders, and it is significant that this appeal starts from Pescara during a Memorial Day concert." (ANSA).
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"In this venue, where music can improve us, as it speaks a universal language that touches our hearts - Anders said - I launched an appeal so that Witold Pilecki may be declared a Righteous Among the Nations, for what he did and for his moral legacy. My father, like Pilecki, was also tortured in prison at the Lubianka in Moscow. Nevertheless, he managed to rescue from the Soviet gulags many Poles imprisoned during the 1939 war, women and children. Among them were no less than 4,000 Jews who would otherwise have suffered a sad fate. When the Polish army, after a stage in Persia, arrived in Palestine, General Anders shielded the protests of the British authorities because he consciously turned a blind eye to the desertions of the Polish Jews who were going to form the army for the establishment of the State of Israel, and among them, Menachem Begin, future Nobel Peace Prize winner. Other Polish Jews would instead fight in Italy 'for our and your freedom,' and we can see the Stars of David in war cemeteries commemorating their sacrifice. All this would not have been possible without my father, who died an exile in London in 1970 and is buried alongside his Catholic, Jewish and Orthodox soldiers at Monte Cassino." "Poland - the ambassador underlined - has the highest number of Righteous among the nations, even though among all European peoples, the Poles were the most exposed to the cruel regulations of the Nazi authorities. Yet there are more than 7,000 who saved the Jews precisely to save the world. I believe that a small place is also there for Witold Pilecki and Wladyslaw Anders, and it is significant that this appeal starts from Pescara during a Memorial Day concert." (ANSA).
