Risk
Capital punishment of entire families, for aiding Jews, was the most draconian such Nazi practice against any nation in occupied Europe. On November 10, 1941, the death penalty was expanded by Hans Frank to apply to Poles who helped Jews "in any way: by taking them in for the night, giving them a lift in a vehicle of any kind" or "feed runaway Jews or sell them foodstuffs." The law was made public by posters distributed in all major cities. Polish rescuers were fully conscious of the dangers facing them and their families not only from the Germans but also from betrayers (see:szmalcownik) within the local population.
Over 700 Polish "Righteous among the Nations" received their medals of honor posthumously, being murdered by the Germans for aiding or sheltering their Jewish neighbors. Estimates of the number of Poles who were killed for aiding Jews range in the tens of thousands.
Gunnar S. Paulsson, in his work on the Jews of Warsaw, has demonstrated that, despite the much harsher conditions, Warsaw's Polish residents managed to support and conceal the same percentage of Jews as did the residents of cities in safer, supposedly less antisemitic countries of Western Europe.
Read more about this topic: Polish Righteous Among The Nations
Famous quotes containing the word risk:
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