2019 Gala for the Righteous

The Garden of the Righteous Committee in Warsaw announced the names of people honoured with the title of the Righteous 2019. The ceremony was held on 5 March 2019 at POLIN Museum:

fot. M. Starowieyska / Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich

Gala Sprawiedliwi 2019, Arsienij Borisowicz Roginski

fot. M. Starowieyska / Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich

Gala Sprawiedliwi 2019, Ewelina Lipko-Lipczyńska

fot. M. Starowieyska / Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich

Gala Sprawiedliwi 2019, prezentacja sylwetki Raoula Wallenberga

fot. M. Starowieyska / Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich

fot. M. Starowieyska / Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich

Arsienij Borisowicz Roginski - Russian historian and political activist, chairman of the „Memorial” association which investigated Stalinist crimes. From 2012, he was a member of the International Auschwitz-Birkenau Council. Without his and his collaborators’ help, documenting the persecution of Poles by the USSR administration would not have been possible,
Ewelina Lipko-Lipczyńska - Polish teacher from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. During the war, together with her father and sisters, she rescued forty Jews, for which she was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal by the Yad Vashem Institute in 1966 and the Honorary Citizenship of the State of Israel in 1997. In 1968 she openly protested against student arrests and the antisemitic campaign,
Raoul Wallenberg - Swedish diplomat, since 1944 a secretary of the Swedish Embassy in Budapest. Taking advantage of his position but risking life at the same time, he rescued Hungarian Jews from being deported to Auschwitz.

In June in the Warsaw Garden of the Righteous at the General Jan Jur-Gorzechowski Square, trees will be planted in their memory and memorial stones will be unveiled.

From amongst those who opposed evil at the time of wars and terror, heroes from the Holocaust period—Righteous Among the Nations whose stories we document and popularize—are especially dear to us at POLIN Museum. We do believe that their attitudes that we honour all across Europe on 6 March are universal, albeit rare. That is why we are proud to support the History Meeting House in popularizing the idea of the Righteous and their Garden in Warsaw.

– Jolanta Gumula, Director for Programming, POLIN Museum.

The Committee of the Garden of the Righteous selected three people from the submitted list of candidates. The names of the Righteous 2019 were announced by Zbigniew Gluza, Chairman of the Committee of the Garden of the Righteous. Their life stories were presented in a short film, and reminiscences about them were read out by Maja Komorowska. The ceremony ended with a piano concert by Janusz Olejniczak.

Among the honourable guests at the Gala were

Righteous Among the Nations, including Anna Stupnicka-Bando, Chairman of the Polish Righteous Association
Ambassadors of France and Israel,
Representatives of the Embassies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway and Slovenia,
Representatives of the City of Warsaw Municipal Office,
City councillors,
Heads of institutions of culture.

TOnly deceased persons may be honoured with the title of the Righteous. Since 2014, the following people have been honoured in the Garden of the Righteous at the General Jan Jur-Gorzechowski Square in Warsaw: Władysław Bartoszewski, Marek Edelman, Natalia Gorbaniewska, Magdalena Grodzka-Gużkowska, Petro Hryhorenko, Jan Jelinek, Jan Karski, Roberto Kozak, Rafał Lemkin, Antonia Locetelli, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Nelson Mandela, Hasan Mazhar, Witold Pilecki, Anna Politkowska, Armin Wegner, Rev. Jan Zieja and Rev. Adalbert Wojciech Zink.