The U.S. Senate has passed a bill to posthumously award the country’s oldest and highest civilian distinction, the Congressional Gold Medal, to five Polish diplomats who saved European Jews during the Holocaust.
It honors 68 diplomats from 28 countries, including five from Poland.
Four of them – Aleksander Ładoś, Konstanty Rokicki, Stefan Ryniewicz and Juliusz Kuhl – were members of the Ładoś Group, an informal team of Polish diplomats stationed in Switzerland who saved European Jews during the holocaust by issuing them passports from Latin American countries.
British historian Roger Moorhouse, who has written a comprehensive book titled ‘Passport for Life’ detailing the entire operation, told TVP World that the Ładoś Group produced identity documents for up to ten thousand people, making the operation “one of the most ambitious Holocaust rescue operations of the [second world] war.”W tym tygodniu Senat USA zaaprobował ustawę o przyznaniu 60 dyplomatom Złotego Medalu Kongresu – najwyższego cywilnego odznaczenia nadawanego przez amerykański parlament. Uhonorowano 60 dyplomatów z 28 krajów, w tym 5 Polaków, zaangażowanych w akcje pomocowe w czasie #IIWŚ 🏅 pic.twitter.com/n8X5TqYtSO
— Instytut Pileckiego (@InstPileckiego) September 28, 2024
Poles went above and beyondPoland’s wartime Ambassador to Switzerland, Aleksander Ładoś, and his deputy Stefan Ryniewicz and consuls Konstanty Rokicki and Juliusz Kühl are to be posthumously granted Congressional Gold Medals for their efforts to rescue thousands of European Jews from #Holocaust . ⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/2r8Ifww2Nb
— Jakub Kumoch 古天卫 (@JakubKumoch) September 27, 2024
The bill emphasized that the award to Ładoś Group’s will help remind humanity that when diplomats faced terrible crises, they went above and beyond, risking their careers and the lives of themselves and their families to engage in this humanitarian mission.
It added: “Diplomats of today and future generations can look to these heroes and draw inspiration from their heroic and self-sacrificing lives.”
The Congressional Gold Medal will also be awarded to Henryk Sławik, a Polish politician, diplomat, and social worker who, as the head of the Citizens’ Committee for Care of Polish Refugees in Hungary, played a vital role in saving many Hungarian and Polish Jews.
He was executed at the Nazi German concentration camp Mauthausen in August 1944.
The gold medal will be donated to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
