Reports from the Shadow. Poles Warn about the Holocaust!
10/12/1942 | Na stronie od 10/12/2025
In 1942, after the Germans embarked on the mass murder of the Jewish population, Poland initiated the first international action aimed at stopping and condemning the German atrocities.
➡The Polish government-in-exile alarmed the world with information about the German terror, concentration camps, and continuing destruction of the Jewish nation. The data were met with disbelief in the West – even among the Jews themselves. Many politicians doubted that the Germans would run a genocidal scheme on such a scale.
➡To convince Western leaders that the terror-based German occupation and slaughter of the Jews was real, the Polish Underground State structures collected and used the government in exile to transmit detailed data on the Holocaust.
➡Among those who took risks to inform the world about what was happening in Poland under German occupation were also ordinary Poles, often acting in conditions of immediate danger to their lives – especially in the occupied territories (the General Government), including the areas incorporated into the Third Reich (the so-called Wartheland). One of them was Stanisław Kaszyński, who, despite the risk of repression, decided to raise the alarm about the German mass murders. He attempted to inform diplomatic representatives and the International Red Cross, trying to raise awareness of the scale of the German crimes, including the extermination of Jews and Roma.
➡The efforts of these individuals, carried out under the dramatic conditions of occupation, were combined with the activities of the Polish government-in-exile, which alerted the Allies and undertook diplomatic initiatives aimed at rescuing the victims of the German terror. On 10 December 1942, the Polish government-in-exile appealed to the signatories of the Declaration by the United Nations to stop the extermination of Jews. The note, signed by Polish Foreign Minister Edward Raczyński and dated 9 December 1942, was a document prepared on the basis of, among other things, the accounts of Jan Karski, who had arrived in London a few weeks earlier with reports from the Polish Underground State.
➡Raczyński's note was the world's first official report on the Holocaust, submitted to the governments of the Allied powers, and at the same time, the first public statement by a European government in defense of all exterminated Jews, not only citizens of pre-war Poland. It contained data on the current situation of Jews, confirmed the crimes committed by the Germans, and presented the efforts of the Polish government-in-exile while appealing for immediate action and the punishment of German criminals.
➡The document played a key role in informing the world about the Holocaust. As a result, on 17 December 1942, the Allied powers issued a special declaration condemning German crimes and announcing that those responsible would be punished.
➡In this way, both the dramatic attempts of individuals such as Stanisław Kaszyński and the diplomatic efforts of the Polish authorities contributed to the first appeal in history to stop the Holocaust.