Code Name Żegota – the Hidden Aid

In December 1942, in the wake of mass executions of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, the Polish Council to Aid Jews was founded in Warsaw by the Government Delegation for Poland. It took the codename “Żegota” after Konrad Żegota – a fictitious individual created for the purpose by the author Zofia Kossak-Szczucka. From then on, the committee comprising representatives of a range of political circles – from Catholic activists to socialists – oversaw aid from political and social organisations and private individuals, given to Jews living under the General Government. It included financial and medical help at ghettos and beyond, supplying “Aryan” documents and forged Baptism certificates and hiding individuals on the run, including placing children rescued from ghettos with Catholic families and orphanages. The exhibition Codename  at the Schindler Factory  is dedicated to the Cracovian cell of Żegota, which covered the southern part of pre-war Poland, stretching from Silesia to Lwów. We will discover human stories which took place in the most extreme circumstances, both from the perspective of those doing the hiding and those being hidden. (dd)