Polish Wartime Ambassador to Switzerland Rescued One of the State of Israel’s Founding Fathers
11.10.2019
ern, Oct. 11 – Newly found documents from the Israel State Archives reveal that in 1940, wartime Polish diplomats in Berne, Switzerland, rescued Yosef Burg — one of Israel’s founding fathers, the Polish Embassy in Switzerland said in a statement. German-born Yosef Burg (1909-99) was for almost 40 years a member of Israel’s Knesset and head of numerous Israeli Ministries.
“Yosef Burg, who was trapped in Nazi-surrounded Switzerland, obtained in August 1940 an illegal Polish passport to escape to Spain and then to continue to Eretz Israel,” Polish Ambassador Jakub Kumoch said. “It was part of the rescue operation that my predecessor, Aleksander Ładoś, together with the World Jewish Congress, conducted to help or rescue Jewish people from Holocaust,” he added.
Among the recently discovered documents, there is a 1946 application for Palestinian citizenship in which Burg, admits to have received phony Polish documents. Another document dates back to 1960, when Burg served as Minister of Welfare in David Ben-Gurion’s government. In this document, the Ministry of Interior informs Burg that his Polish passport was located and forwarded to him. Ambassador Kumoch said that the documents were reviewed by both Israeli and Polish historians.
Burg, religious Zionist and later one of the leaders of Mizrachi movement, was one of many people rescued this way, noted Kumoch. Another well-known example is Pierre Mendes France, French resistance fighter and future Prime Minister.
“At that time, the Embassy of Poland in Switzerland issued thousands of Polish passports for Jewish refugees from all over occupied-Europe to protect them against deportation or to help them escape from Europe. Months later, the Polish diplomats hatched a similar rescue scheme in which they fabricated Latin American documents for at least 8,000 people,” Kumoch said. “Interestingly, the handwritings on the Polish passports from 1940 and on the Paraguayan passports from 1943 remarkably look the same,” Kumoch added.
Yosef Burg, who died in 1999, never publicly mentioned this Polish chapter of his life. From 1949 until his retirement from public politics in 1988, Burg was a Member of Knesset representing Hapoel HaMizrachi and the National Religious Party. Between 1951 and 1986, he served as a member of nearly every Israeli government, serving under seven Israeli Prime Ministers. Ambassador Ładoś and his diplomats, Poles and Jews alike, remained in exile after 1945 when Poland became Communist dictatorship.