POLISH DIPLOMAT THE RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS
Paweł Sawicki
Konstanty Rokicki, the Polish vice consul in Switzerland during World War II, produced fake passports of South American countries and distributed them to Jews who were about to be deported. Now he was declared the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
Konstanty Rokicki was a consular officer who served as Polish vice-Consul in Berne between 1939 and 1945. He was responsible for issuing passports. Between 1941 and 1944, Rokicki bought over 1,050 blank Paraguayan passes from the Swiss honorary consul of Paraguay and forged passports for over 2,600 people. The passports often were issued to entire families which is why 1,050 blank forms could cover 2,600 people. He also issued other documents – confirmations of Paraguayan citizenship – some 2,000 people received such documents.
The owners of the passports were able to prove they were foreigners and that the Holocaust ‘laws’ did not apply to them. Many of them were interned by the Nazis rather than sent to death camps. Poland and some other states supported the idea of exchanging the ‘passport Jews’ against German nationals held by the Allies and some exchanges took place in 1944 and 1945. However, for many survivors, passports helped avoid massive deportations, after which they went into hiding.
It’s important to note that Rokicki did not work alone. He worked under instructions of Ambassador Aleksander Ładoś and his deputy Stefan Ryniewicz. Documents show that Ryniewicz also played part in forging passports and Ładoś vehemently defended the whole procedure in his meeting with the Swiss Foreign Minister Marcel Pilet-Golaz. Ambassador Ładoś also initiated widespread intervention by Polish embassies after which Paraguay and some other countries recognized the illegal documents. Rokicki also worked with his Jewish colleague, Polish diplomat Juliusz Kühl and directly co-operated with representatives of both secular and religious Jewry, Abraham Silberschein and Chaim Eiss.
‘Consul Rokicki was a representative of the Polish State. He received an order from Ambassador Aleksander Ładoś and his deputy Stefan Ryniewicz to break the Swiss law in the name of saving human life, and this task was performed by his Jewish subordinate Juliusz Kühl. All four took on a huge risk in case of failure,’ said Jakub Kumoch, Ambassador of the Republic of Poland to Switzerland.
konstanty Rokicki