6th-30th January 2023, Aberdeen Central Library, (Talk on 9th January 2023)

An exhibition dedicated to the Polish diplomats who saved Jewish lives during the Second World War.

80 years ago, in 1941, in Bern, Switzerland, Polish diplomats in cooperation with Jewish circles launched the so-called “passport initiative” to save Jews from the Holocaust.

Aleksander Ładoś, Konstanty Rokicki, Abraham Silberschein, Chaim Eiss, Stefan Ryniewicz, and Juliusz Kühl, also known as the Ładoś Group, issued fake passports for neutral Latin American countries to Jewish people facing the death camps.

The Pilecki Institute in Warsaw, in cooperation with its partners in Poland and abroad, has for several years conducted research and archival queries on the activities of the Ładoś Group.

This has resulted, among other things, in the publication in 2019 of a scientific study on the Ładoś List, with the names of more than three thousand people for whom passports were issued.

The efforts of the researchers not only confirmed the course of action of the passport operation, but also proved that we are dealing with one of the largest rescue operations carried out by diplomats during the Holocaust.

Thanks to the publication of the Ładoś List, the rescue operation of Polish diplomats in Switzerland has become the subject of international discussion, involving Holocaust survivors and their descendants, families of the diplomats engaged in the operation, as well as scholars, journalists, and cultural figures.

Families of survivors from all over the world, who discover the fate of their loved ones for the first time, have come to the Pilecki Institute and shared their stories, photos, and documents.

This allows the research to continue and the list to be constantly updated with new names.

Alongside the exhibition, on the 9th of January 2023, a special talk by critically acclaimed historian Roger Moorhouse, and Monika Maniewska from the Pilecki Institute will be held.

To attend the talk, register for free under the following link:

Passports For Life Exhibition Talk | Aberdeen City Libraries (spydus.co.uk)