Polish man honoured for helping Jews resist the Nazis

A Polish council worker who gave the Jewish underground fake identity documents, information on Nazi activities and a list of hiding locations has been honoured as Righteous Among the Nations.

The ceremony in London was Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev and Sir Eric Pickles MP met the family of Josef Pluskowski, a socialist party member regarded as a public figure, social activist, scholar and publicist.

During the war, he worked for Warsaw City Council, but outside his employment he served as the liaison between the Polish resistance movement and the Jewish resistance in Warsaw. His wife Irena helped him, carrying weapons to the ghetto and arming the resistance. Pluskowski died in 1950.

Pickles said: “This is an extraordinary story of heroism, where Pluskowski and his wife decided that they were not going to be downtrodden by the Nazis, but were going to rescue people, some people they knew, some people they never met. It’s an act of goodness and kindness. They are true heroes.”

Regev had earlier travelled to Jersey to honour Dorothea Weber, who was named a Righteous Among the Nations for saving the life of her Jewish friend on the island.