Paris square in memory of Polish WWII hero

During Monday’s ceremony, Ewa Juńczyk-Ziomecka, president of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation, said that Karski’s stand during World War II was a moral signpost for all people, also in time of peace.

The mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski, who attended the ceremony, recalled the futility of the efforts undertaken by Karski to urge a response by Allied leaders to the extermination of Jews by Nazi Germany. He spoke of Karski’s great role in the shaping of Polish-Jewish relations.

The ceremony was also attended by a deputy mayor of Paris, Patrick Klugman, a grandson of Jewish immigrants from Poland, who lost some members of his family in the Holocaust.

In order to gather evidence on the plight of Polish Jews, Karski was smuggled by Jewish underground leaders into the Warsaw Ghetto. Having escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland, he met several Allied leaders, including Anthony Eden, Britain’s foreign secretary, and US president Franklin Roosevelt, but failed to secure support for Polish Jews.

After the war, Karski settled in the United States and became a professor at Georgetown University in Washington. He died in 2000, aged 86.

While in Paris, Warsaw Mayor Trzaskowski and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo signed a new pact of friendship and cooperation.

The previous one was concluded 20 years ago. Hidalgo told the Polish Press Agency that Warsaw and Paris are two great cities that “share progressive values based on equality”. The agreement provides for “an exchange of experience in politics and town-planning.”

(mk/jh)

Source: PAP