This year, for the first time in history, the foreign ministers of Poland and Israel, Professor Zbigniew Rau and Lt. Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, and both countries’ ambassadors in EU member states and across the globe, have come together to commemorate the 78th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. From Brazil to Europe, from Kazakhstan to Vietnam, more than 50 Polish and Israeli ambassadors are marking this special anniversary together by taking part in the Daffodil Campaign, organized by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. This effort by Polish and Israeli diplomats is an opportunity to raise awareness of the history of the heroes and heroines of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, while also highlighting the international dimension of Polish-Israeli collaboration in commemorating its tragic history.

The foreign ministers and ambassadors of Poland and Israel joined the Daffodil Campaign at the invitation of ELNET — Poland. ELNET is a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening relations between Europe and Israel based on shared democratic values and strategic interests.

To commemorate the anniversary of the uprising, ambassadors posed for photos holding daffodils—symbols of the uprising that erupted on this day 78 years ago. For many years, Marek Edelman (1919–2009), the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, received a bouquet of yellow daffodils from an anonymous person on the anniversary of the revolt. Each year he laid the flowers at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw. Now in its ninth year, the Daffodil Campaign was created and is led by the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews to uphold this tradition and, more importantly, to sustain the memory of the heroes and heroines of the uprising.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out April 19, 1943, marking the single largest armed Jewish insurrection against German Nazis during World War II. It was a heroic act of defiance against the tragic fate of the Jewish people, a crucial chapter of which was the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, initiated several months earlier, on July 22, 1942. The young men and women who remained in the walled-off district chose to die in battle rather than in the gas chamber at Treblinka. The uprising ended on May 16, 1943, when the Nazis destroyed the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street, and razed the rest of the ghetto to the ground.

 

MFA Press Office

Photo: Tymon Markowski / MFA