Tombstone in Switzerland for Polish diplomat who helped Jews in WWII
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
17.08.2018 11:30
A new tombstone will be placed at a Swiss cemetery for a Polish diplomat who helped Jews during World War II, a news agency reported on Friday.
![Konstanty Rokicki. Image: Zbigniew Popadiuch [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons](http://external.polskieradio.pl/files/aee1f675-d6f0-4e8e-b3b3-57a88aaea7b4.file "Konstanty Rokicki. Image: Zbigniew Popadiuch [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons")
Konstanty Rokicki. Image: Zbigniew Popadiuch [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
The tombstone of Konstanty Rokicki (1899-1958), who fabricated Latin American passports to save Jews from the Holocaust, will be erected at the Friedental Cemetery in the Swiss city of Lucerne in October, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported, citing the Polish embassy in Bern and authorities in Lucerne.
During WW II, Rokicki was among a group of diplomats led by the Polish ambassador to Switzerland at the time, Aleksander Ładoś, who produced fake passports of Latin American countries that helped hundreds of Jews escape from Poland at a time when the country was under Nazi German occupation.
In addition to Rokicki and Ładoś, the group included Juliusz Kuehl and Stefan Ryniewicz, according to the IAR news agency.
"After preliminary work at the cemetery—which was carried out as an initiative by the Polish embassy in [the Swiss capital] Bern in cooperation with [Poland’s] Institute of National Remembrance (IPN)—together with the family, we have decided to place a tombstone at the site where Consul Rokicki was buried in 1958,” Poland’s current ambassador to Switzerland, Jakub Kumoch, has said, as quoted by IAR.
He added: “Thanks to cooperation from the city and the cemetery, following archival research carried out and based on the results of work by IPN experts, we are sure that this is where Consul Rokicki was laid to rest.”
After nearly 75 years Poland has recovered a historical archive documenting the effort in which its diplomats helped rescue Jews from the Holocaust during World War II, the IAR news agency reported earlier this month.
The collection originally belonged to Chaim Eiss (1867-1943), an Orthodox Jewish activist who was a member of the Bern-based group led by Ładoś, which forged Latin American passports to save Jews.
It is estimated that the diplomats produced from several hundred to several thousand fake passports between 1941 and 1943.
The Speaker of Poland’s Senate, Stanisław Karczewski, in February unveiled a plaque in Bern, commemorating the Polish diplomats who helped save Jews from the Holocaust.
(gs)
Source: IAR