Poland in Saudi Arabia

Before World War II, the Polish diplomatic mission in Bern did not play a particularly important role in the foreign policy of the Republic of Poland. Polish-Swiss bilateral relations could hardly be called revived, although Poland opened its diplomatic representation in Bern as early as 1919, and the Swiss established their post in Warsaw in 1921. Indeed, the Republic of Poland attached great importance to its representation at the League of Nations in Swiss Geneva. The delegates of the Republic of Poland included outstanding politicians and diplomats, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, Konstanty Skirmunt, Aleksander Skrzyński and Edward Raczyński. Numerous Polish representatives came to the Geneva headquarters of LN to take part in the meetings of the League Council and Assembly. In the interwar period, however, no Polish politician visited his Swiss counterpart, nor did any Swiss delegation come to Poland. Just before the outbreak of the war, two diplomats worked in the Bernese mission led by MP Tytus Komarnicki, the First Secretary of the Legation, Stefan Ryniewicz, the head of the Consular Department and attaché Stanisław Nahlik, and ten contract workers, including Konstanty Rokicki.

After the outbreak of the war, despite German pressure, the authorities in Bern did not agree to close the Polish representation. It quickly turned out that the activities of the mission go well beyond the borders of neutral Switzerland. It became particularly visible after 1941 when Germany conquered or dominated almost all European countries. Aleksander Ładoś, who took over the head of the Swiss mission in April 1940, wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London: "In 1942, the Polish Legation in Bern [is] almost the only one outside the Scandinavian and Pyrenean Peninsulas on the European continent that can operate and exist under normal conditions. Missions in France - illegal, embassy in the Vatican - locked inside walls. The scope of the facility's operation has increased significantly. The post in Bern has in fact become the Polish embassy for the entire continent of Europe ”.

Indeed, the legation led by Ładoś has become for the Polish government in London the central link in the chain of information, correspondence and financial resources for the majority of Polish refugees in satellite states or those conquered by Germany. The Berne facility was used to help recipients of support in Switzerland itself, but also in Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, Greece and Italy, as well as in non-European countries, Japan and China. An important role was played by the fact that the legation could cooperate in its activities with the International Red Cross based in Geneva, at which Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł was accredited as a representative of the Polish Red Cross.

People of Jewish origin were the largest group among the recipients of the aid activities carried out by the legation throughout the entire war period. The campaign to help Jews in occupied Poland was of particular importance. The facility, in cooperation with the International Red Cross, brokered the transfer of goods and medicines, collected and distributed information, and made its communication channels available to Swiss and American organizations helping Jews in Poland. A unique example of the involvement of Polish diplomats in the action to save European Jews were the activities using the passports of South American countries, carried out by the "Bernese group" led by Ładoś in 1940-1943. Its members included, apart from the head of the institution, the first secretary and later the counselor of the legation Stefan Ryniewicz, vice-consul Konstanty Rokicki, attaché Juliusz Kühl and representatives of the Jewish community cooperating with them, attorney Abraham Silberschein and merchant Chaim Eiss.

Under what circumstances did Polish diplomats become involved in the passport operation? In 1940, information appeared that Jews in occupied Poland, who had the citizenship of neutral countries, could count on better treatment by the Germans. They were temporarily exempted from compliance with certain administrative regulations, for example, from wearing armbands with the Star of David and from performing forced labor. In the "Jewish Gazette", which appeared in the General Government, there were references to the possibility of going to Brazil, Chile and Shanghai. Persons with passports confirming the possession of another citizenship were to have a chance. Offices have been established in Warsaw and Krakow to mediate in contacts with foreign relatives of people who want to leave. Families living abroad with great difficulties on their own bought passports for their relatives and sent them to Poland.

In 1942, representatives of the Polish facility, Ryniewicz and Rokicki, approached Silberschein with a proposal to take action that would allow the passports of Latin American countries to be used to help a larger group of people in occupied Poland - but also in the Netherlands and other countries occupied by the Germans. The first findings were probably made by Icchak Sternbuch and Juliusz Kühl. The project of involvement of the post in the operation was approved by Aleksander Ładoś, diplomatically resigning from asking the government in London for consent.

The idea of ​​the operation was to issue Jews with forged passports confirming foreign citizenship to the German authorities. Ryniewicz, Rokicki and Kühl took care of obtaining passports from honorary consuls of Central and South American countries in the capital of Switzerland. The main supplier was initially the Paraguayan consul, Rudolf Hügli, who provided Kühl with blank passport forms for a fee. The forms were filled in by Rokicki (only a few of the several hundred copies found were filled with a different hand), using personal data and photographs provided by Silberschein and Eiss. The forms filled out by Rokicki were returned to Hügli, who affixed them with his signature and seal. Photocopies of documents prepared in this way were sent by Silberschein by post to the recipient to the indicated address in Poland. For each passport, Hügli received between 500 and 2,000 Swiss francs (for comparison - Ładoś's monthly salary as the head of a Polish facility was 1,800 francs). For a large number of people, certificates confirming citizenship of Paraguay were also prepared and sent without filling in a passport form.

Another method of operation was adopted by consuls of other countries, such as Honduras, Haiti, El Salvador and Peru, who filled in the documents themselves with the data provided by Silberschein. The Polish mission was informed about these operations. Recipients of passports or copies of passports and other certificates confirming or promising foreign citizenship, the so-called “promes” could count that they would not be transported by the Germans to concentration camps, but that they would be placed, as foreigners, in internment camps.

One of the first successful operations to hand over forged passports took place in the fall of 1941. Thanks to the then "obtained" Paraguayan citizenship in early 1943, a group of interned Jews was transported from Poland to the camps in Tittmoning in Bavaria and Vittel in France. Some of them were exchanged for German prisoners of war interned by the Allies. The action of producing passports gained special significance after May 1943, when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was suppressed. Himmler, the head of the SS and the German police, then issued a decision to accelerate the extermination of the approximately 300,000 Jews who survived and to liquidate all ghettos in Poland. Unfortunately, many of the documents produced in Bern did not arrive on time. After the liquidation of the ghetto in Warsaw, to the post office at Zamenhof street still received letters from Switzerland with documents certifying the citizenship of South American countries for people who died during the uprising or were taken to Treblinka. Swiss documents then became the subject of trafficking in people who were Gestapo informers, deceiving Jews with the hope of survival. Among the 2,000 people who, hoping to obtain a salutary certificate, gathered at the Hotel Polski in Warsaw and paid off handsomely for their "rescue", almost all of them were sent in a transport to the camp in Bergen-Belsen or transferred to the Pawiak in the first half of July 1943.

At the end of 1943, the passport production began to die down. The reason was, on the one hand, the sudden death of Chaim Eiss and the resulting complications - the lack of access to the personal data of potential recipients. On the other hand, the actions of the authorities of South American countries which, alerted by Berlin, closed down several of their consulates in Switzerland or revoked the powers of their consuls involved in the passport operation. The German Ministry of Foreign Affairs also began to verify the authenticity of the documents held by Jews treated as foreigners. After the authenticity of the "Swiss" passports was questioned in the spring of 1944, the Jews previously held in internment camps in Vittel and Compiègne were transported to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

After unmasking numerous forged documents, Ładoś asked the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs several times for interventions with the governments of South American countries so that, in the face of greater necessity, they would recognize the validity of the passports produced by the "Bernese Group" and thus protect their "citizens" from deportation. These activities were supported by the diplomacy of the US and the Holy See, but unfortunately brought limited results. The validity of the passports has been recognized by the Chilean and Paraguayan authorities, but the Germans have already transported the document holders to concentration camps. The inmates in Auschwitz died, but shortly before the liberation of the camp there were reportedly still more than 1,100 passport holders of the "Ładoś group" in Bergen-Belsen.

The exact balance of the rescue operation undertaken by Polish diplomats in Bern using South American passports remains unknown. Based on various sources, different estimates can be made. On each of at least 1056 Paraguayan passports, handwritten by consul Konstanty Rokicki, there were names of an average of two people. The documents would therefore protect at least 2,100 people. Moreover, certificates of Paraguayan citizenship were prepared for several thousand Jews, without the production of passports.

According to a report by Silberschein from January 1944, the actions of the "Bernese group" resulted in the rescue of about 10,000 people from deportation to German death camps.

According to the data contained in a document prepared at the end of July 1944 for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London, about 4,000 passports were issued for Polish Jews in Bern. Approximately 3,000 passports were issued by the Salvadoran consulate, 400-500 passports by the Honduran consulate, 200-250 passports by the Paraguayan consulate, about 100 passports by the Peruvian consulate, 10-15 passports by the Haitian consulate, 10 passports from Costa Rica and Chile, and several passports by the consulates of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador. Researchers hypothesize that the figures given may not reflect reality, since the Paraguayan passports themselves, produced from the very beginning of the campaign, have so far been found over 1000.

According to the data currently collected by the Pilecki Institute, there are 2,987 names on the list of people who received passports or citizenship certificates prepared by the Ładoś Group (as of October 24, 2019). The collected data also includes 275 unnamed family members. According to the Institute, the names of 5,000 to 7,000 holders of forged passports are still unknown. How many Jews were saved by documents from Switzerland? According to the findings of the Polish embassy in Bern, there are 330 names of Paraguayan passport holders on the list of those saved from death. Taking into account how large the number of unknown recipients of forged documents is, the group of "Paraguayans" saved should be estimated at 700-800 people. The number of "citizens" of Honduras, Haiti and other Latin American countries saved from death should be similar. Ambassador Jakub Kumoch estimates the total number of Jews successfully protected thanks to the actions of Polish diplomats against the extermination as high as 2,000.