On August 11, 1942, the underground Catholic Front for the Revival of Poland, then led by Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, issued a “Protest!”. Leaflet urging all Catholics, regardless of their political beliefs, to immediately join in helping Jews. The manifesto was issued shortly after the start of a large-scale Nazi extermination operation in the Warsaw Ghetto, in which more than 300,000 people were sent to Treblinka or killed on the spot. Thousands fled to the Polish part of Warsaw and elsewhere in the Governor-General's Office.
According to researchers, it was Zofia Kossak who was perhaps the first in all of occupied Europe to oppose the Holocaust and call for solidarity with the victims: “Whoever is silent before the murder becomes an accomplice to the murderer. He who does not condemn allows.”
This document sharply criticized the world community for the lack of any reaction to the Holocaust: “In the Warsaw ghetto behind the wall that cuts it off from the world, several hundred thousand doomed await their death. For them, there is no hope of salvation, no help from anywhere. They were all guilty of being born into a Jewish nation condemned by Hitler to extermination. The world is looking at this crime, which is the worst thing history has ever seen, and is silent. England and America are silent, even the influential international Jewry, which once reacted so vividly to every misfortune of its fellow believers, is silent. Poles are also silent [...]. The perishing Jews are surrounded only by Pilates, who wash their hands. This silence cannot be tolerated any longer. Whatever his motives, it is dishonest.”
The writer's manifesto was distributed in occupied Poland in a circulation of 5,000 copies. On September 27, 1942, the Konrad Zhegota Temporary Committee for Aid to Jews (later the Council for Aid to Jews) was established, founded by Sofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krachelska-Filipovych. The Zhegoty network covered the entire territory of the Governor-General, up to remote regions of the country. It is estimated that about fourteen thousand people cooperated with Zhegota on a regular basis.
In 1982, Sofia Kossak-Szczucka was posthumously awarded the Medal and the title of Righteous Among the Nations.
Watch Marina Strilchuk's online lesson on this topic.