The Żegota Council to Aid Jews was the only state-supported clandestine institution in the Nazi-occupied countries of Europe. It came in response to Operation Reinhard, a secret Nazi plan to exterminate Polish Jews.

Stefan Rowecki, codename “Grot” (Spearhead) was born on December 25, 1895 in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland. In his hometown he graduated from a middle school and founded one of Poland’s first scouting organizations. He enrolled at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the Wawelberg and Rotwand Engineering School in Warsaw, Poland. In 1913 he joined the Polish Rifle Squads, where he went by the nom de guerre Radecki. He was appointed non-commissioned officer and chief of the Warsaw branch of the Rifle Squads.

What influenced Poland under Nazi occupation was to what extent its society was then aware of current affairs. Any piece of information mattered at that time, not only that specific one that contributed to wartime decision-making processes. Of crucial importance, also for history, was any information that made Poles aware of Nazi atrocities on the one hand and the Home Army’s independence pursuits on the other. As Poles grew more aware, they increasingly opposed the Nazi occupier. The Bureau also promoted pro-Polish attitudes, making the Polish resistance movement stronger than in any other Nazi-occupied country.

Jan Karski was a great man who briefed the whole world on Nazi atrocities in occupied Poland during World War II. Karski became a courier for the Polish Underground resistance and the Polish government-in-exile, spreading his eyewitness account of the Holocaust. A Polish patriot, soldier and professor.

Once the war’s encroaching fog finally cleared, the territories of Poland were in ruins. The extent of repression and misery inflicted on the Polish people left a strong imprint that we can still observe today. The Polish territories were in a state of chaos in the early days of the postwar period. Soviet advances east of the pre-war Curzon line were consolidated as a result of decisions made at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences.

Cracow is the only major city in Poland that allows us to travel back in time to a Poland that no longer exists. Walking about the city, we are surrounded by monuments that have weathered the upheaval of two world wars. The particular character of the residence of Polish kings can be attributed principally to an entire generation that was prepared to defend it from the fate of other Polish cities, such as Warsaw.