The exhibit, “Polish Heroes: Those Who Rescued Jews” is coming to the University of Alaska, Anchorage Nov. 5-20.

The exhibit’s promoter, Jerzy Maselko, a chemistry professor at the university, says the powerful presentation fills in the gaps in society’s memory about the heroic effort of many Polish Catholics who attempted to save their Jewish countrymen during the Holocaust.

“We hear about ‘Schindler’s List,’ but we don’t hear about the incredible role the Catholic Church played in trying to save the Jews,” Maselko said.

The exhibit, which will be housed at the Consortium Library of the University of Alaska, Anchorage and Alaska Pacific University, has been traveling to university campuses around the United States for several years. 

Co-curated by the Auschwitz Jewish Center, the Galicia Jewish Museum and the Polish/American/Jewish Alliance for Youth Action, the photographic display focuses on 21 Poles in the Krakow area.

They represent more than 6,000 Polish individuals who have received medals for “Righteous of the Nations,” an award given by the international Holocaust education center Yad Vashem and the State of Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews from extermination during World War II.

Nearly 24,000 people from 45 nations have received this award as testimony to the ancient Talmud teaching, “He who saves one life saves the world entire.”

Before World War II, more than three million Jews lived in Poland, about 10 percent of the country’s population. The persecution of Polish Jews was pernicious, according to Maselko, and the penalties handed out by the German authorities to those who helped Jews were vicious. Although people throughout Europe suffered for helping Jews, Poland was the only country in which the Germans officially imposed the death penalty for aiding Jewish people.

Maselko, who was born in Poland in 1944, has no memory of the war. But a cousin told him about an experience she had as a child.

“My cousin was about eight years old,” he recalled. “One day, in the village, she saw a young Jewish girl crying. She told her mother, ‘Mother, you have to do something,’ but her mother ignored the girl. When they arrived home, my cousin said, ‘How could you be so rude?’ Her mother told her about what she had experienced days before, when she found ten people hiding in the barn.”

Maselko said the mother explained to his cousin that the people were Jews hiding out in rural areas. His cousin’s mother took them bread and milk, but later when she came back they were gone.

“The next day, the chief of the village came to her,” said Maselko, “and told her, don’t hide anyone else in your barn. The Germans will kill you and your whole family if you do.”

Maselko said many young children were executed because their family had been involved in helping the Jews.

In an article for The International Research Center, Mark Paul noted that more than 900 Roman Catholic Church institutions in Poland carried out rescue operations of some kind for Polish Jews.

“Several dozen members of the Polish clergy were executed for this reason,” he writes. “This effort is all the more remarkable since Poland was the only country under Nazi Germany’s occupation where any form of assistance to Jews was routinely punishable by death.”

The exhibit in Anchorage is available courtesy of the Consul General of the Republic of Poland for Los Angeles. It is sponsored locally by the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland for Alaska and the University of Alaska, Anchorage Department of History.

A reception to open the exhibit will be held at 5 p.m., Nov. 5, on the third floor of the Consortium Library.

For more information, contact Jerzy Maselko at 907-786-4697 or afjm1(at)uaa.alaska.edu.

This article originally appeared in the Catholic Anchor, the newspaper of the archdiocese of Anchorage, and is republished here with permission.