(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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Shoah: Pilecki, Anders should be Righteous Among the Nations
Poland's ambassador Anna Maria Anders calls on Yad Vashem