News - Instytut Pileckiego

On the National Day of Remembrance for Poles rescuing Jews under German Occupation (24 March), just a few kilometres from Brzóza Królewska, where we commemorated the Kazak family, the opening of the revitalised park at Staw Traczewski in Głogów took place.

Its patron was Aleksander Ładoś, a Polish diplomat, politician and journalist who was the Polish envoy in Bern from 1940-1945 and the leader of the Ładoś Group. The Ładoś family has been connected with Głogów Małopolski since the 18th century, when they arrived there from Hungary.

During the Second World War, Aleksander Ładoś and his colleagues carried out the so-called passport operation to rescue Jews from occupied Europe by issuing them with documents of South and Central American countries: Paraguay, Honduras, Haiti and Peru. The passports confirmed the citizenship of these countries and thus increased their bearers' chances of survival. Jews were often sent to internment camps instead of extermination camps, which gave them the opportunity to be exchanged for prisoners of war held by the Allies.

"(...) in the face of war, in defence of humanitarian values and human life, Poles and Jews stood shoulder to shoulder. The passport operation would not have been possible without the cooperation of Polish diplomats and representatives of Jewish communities. Aleksander Ładoś allowed the operation to proceed and intervened when everyone needed him the most," said Monika Maniewska, a member of the International Ładoś Group Committee, co-author of "The Ładoś List", and a researcher at the Pilecki Institute who has been working on this extraordinary story since 2018.

The solemn celebrations, organized by the city's mayor, were accompanied by the dedication of an obelisk, a concert, the unveiling of a mural depicting the Ładoś Group and an open-air exhibition prepared by the Education Department of the Institute of National Remembrance in Rzeszów.