Konstanty Rokicki

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Konstanty Rokicki

Konstanty Rokicki (born June 16, 1899 in Warsaw , † July 18, 1958 in Lucerne ) was a Polish Holocaust savior. He worked as a consular officer and as a vice consul in Riga and Bern . As part of a rescue operation, Rokicki and other Polish diplomats in Bern produced Latin American passports from 1941 to 1943 , which freed their holders from deportation to the extermination camps .

Live and act

Rokicki was the son of Józef Rokicki and Konstancja nee Pawełkiewicz. In 1920 he probably took part in the Polish-Soviet war and was awarded twice for bravery. In 1934 he was seconded to the 1st Horse Jäger Regiment as a reserve officer . On August 17, 1936, he married Maria née Goldman (Goldmanis). The couple had a daughter, Wanda Rokicka (1938–2008), who later worked for the United Nations in Geneva .

In 1931 Rokicki entered the consular service of the Polish Foreign Ministry . From 1932 to 1933 he was an employee of the Polish consulate in Minsk in the Belarusian socialist Soviet republic . From 1934 to 1936 he was Vice Consul in Riga, from 1936 to 1938 employed by the Polish Embassy in Cairo and from 1939 to 1945 Vice Consul in Bern.

Holocaust rescue operation and the passport affair

From 1941 to 1943, together with his Jewish colleague Juliusz Kühl , he personally produced up to several thousand Latin American passports, copies of which were smuggled into ghettos in Wehrmacht- occupied Poland and the occupied Netherlands . This saved the lives of many Jews because, as holders of the passports, they were not transported to the Nazi extermination camps but to internment camps in Germany and occupied France .

The blank passports were bought by the Paraguayan honorary consul and Bern notary Rudolf Hüggli for a bribe. The funds for this purpose came from the Jewish organizations in the USA and Switzerland as well as from the Polish government in exile (as a " means of supporting the refugees ").

The lists of names with photos of the future passport holders were smuggled out of the ghettos in Poland by the Jewish organizations Agudat Israel and RELICO (whose leaders were Chaim Eiss and Abraham Silberschein ). The Paraguayan passports had a special value at that time as they were temporarily officially recognized under pressure from Poland and the Holy See of Paraguay.

Next life

Konstanty Rokicki (1899–1958) Vice Consul in Bern 1939–1945, Holocaust savior. Grave in the Friedental cemetery, City of Lucerne
Grave in the Friedental cemetery

After the communist seizure of power in Poland, Rokicki left the consular service in 1945. He stayed in Switzerland and later tried to relocate to Brazil . He died in Lucerne in July 1958 after a long illness. He found his final resting place in the Friedental cemetery .

Rokicki was mentioned along with other Polish diplomats, the envoy Aleksander Ładoś , Juliusz Kühl and Stefan Ryniewicz , in a letter of thanks from Agudat Israel to the Polish government in exile in London . Agudat Israel stated in the letter that the rescue of "several hundred people" would not have been possible without the help of these diplomats. Journalists Mark MacKinnon, Zbigniew Parafianowicz and Michał Potocki wrote about Rokicki's role in saving the Jews in August 2017. Rokicki is rarely mentioned in the specialist literature, where the main characters of the rescue operation are almost exclusively Ładoś and Kühl .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rokicki Konstanty data śmierci July 18, 1958 »Zmarły« www.nekrologi-baza.pl, www.nekrologi-baza.pl (pol.)
  2. ↑ Yearbook of Reserve Officers from 1934, p. 607.
  3. ↑ Rudolf Hüggli hearing, January 18, 1943, Federal Archives Bern
  4. ^ Harry A. Goodmann's letter to Polish MFA, January 2, 1945, the Sikorski Institute, London
  5. ↑ Mark Mackinnon: He should be as well known as Schindler ': Documents reveal Canadian citizen Julius Kuhl as Holocaust hero, The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/holocaust-oskar-schindler-julius- kuhl-canadian / article35896768 /
  6. ↑ Zbigniew Parafianowicz, Michał Potocki, How a Polish envoy saved hundreds of Jews in Bern, www.swissinfo.ch/ger/gesellschaft/holocaust_wie-ein-polnischer-gesandter-in-bern-hunderte-juden-rettete/43402526
personal data
SURNAME Rokicki, Konstanty
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish Holocaust savior
DATE OF BIRTH June 16, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Warsaw
DATE OF DEATH July 18, 1958
Place of death Lucerne