Screening of Passports to Paraguay in Nicosia
27.01.2020
To commemorate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and 75. anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi-German concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, on 27th January the Embassy of Poland in Nicosia presented the film “Passports to Paraguay”.
To commemorate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and 75. anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi-German concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, on 27th January the Embassy of Poland in Nicosia presented the film “Passports to Paraguay”. It was preceded by the screening of the documentary “Chronicles of the liberation of the Camp” received from the State Museum in Oświęcim. Introductory remarks before the film were made by Mr Jan Baster, Deputy President of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance.
The event was organized at Cine Studio at the University of Nicosia. It gathered the diplomatic corps, representatives of the Cypriot authorities, as well as scientific and cultural circles and opinion makers.
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The film touches the issue of participation of the Polish diplomacy in rescuing Jews during World War II. In 1942-1943, an informal group of Polish diplomats and activists of Jewish organizations functioned in the Polish legation in Bern. They worked together to obtain passports of South American states for Jewish people imprisoned by the Nazi German occupants in ghettos in Poland and other European countries. Thanks to the “Bernese group”, many avoided deportation to German death camps and survived till the end of war. The families of the survivors only today find out to whom they actually owe their lives. The secret group working at the Polish legation in Bern included Aleksander Ładoś, Konstanty Rokicki, Stefan Jan Ryniewicz, Juliusz Kühl and on the part of Jewish organizations - Adolf H. Silberschein, Chaim Eiss and Agudat Israel.