On Tuesday, December 16, somber air-raid sirens sounded in Warsaw. Citizens had been warned via their mobile phones that these would be only “technical tests.” At that same time, at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, built on the ruins of the former Ghetto, the eleventh annual Celebration of the Righteous was held, this time indoors because renovation work is about to begin in the nearby Garden of the Righteous, according to the fine project by the renowned architect Paweł Grobelny.
There were more than three hundred people in the Museum’s auditorium, half of them students from four Warsaw high schools. The students remained attentive and silent for about two and a half hours.
This year’s honorees were:
Iryna Tsybukh, a Ukrainian volunteer nurse and journalist: a young woman who deliberately gave up her professional career to save the wounded at the front.
Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl, co-founders of the “White Rose” organization, a symbol of moral resistance to Nazi totalitarianism.
Marian Turski, journalist, Auschwitz survivor, and witness to two death marches.
The ceremony was opened by the Director of POLIN, Zygmunt Stępiński, who emphasized the close collaborative relationship between his Museum and the Garden of the Righteous.
Wojciech Soczewica, Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation and member of the Board of the Warsaw Garden of the Righteous Foundation, announced that the city administration had approved the new project for the Garden and, with the help of several slides, illustrated its features. The Chair of the Foundation’s Committee, Agnieszka Bieńczyk-Missala, as Soczewica had already done at the beginning of his remarks, recalled the massacre of Jews during the Chanukah holiday on an Australian beach and the heroic act of the Muslim Ahmed al Achmed, who disarmed one of the terrorists. She also focused on the figure of a woman named Jessica who, unable to find her own child in the crowd, decided to shield with her body a three-year-old girl screaming in terror: “Not everyone is capable of making such courageous choices, and thanks to these Righteous we can understand how much depends on the individual and on individual decisions. As a university professor who teaches human rights and the fight against violence, I can testify to how difficult dialogue with young people is in a world in which humanistic values are in crisis and even government leaders act against these values.” She then concluded: “Our efforts and annual meetings can therefore be considered an attempt to celebrate a wounded world. It is an attempt we approach with gratitude. We approach all the Righteous with gratitude and passion. These are not textbook saints, but flesh-and-blood people who made specific decisions at specific moments: to help or to look the other way, to tell the truth or remain silent, to stay or to flee. For 11 years, the Committee of the Garden of the Righteous Foundation has selected, from among many candidates, people to be honored with the title of Righteous, following the example of the Gariwo Foundation, which established the Garden of the Righteous in Milan and spread this idea to other cities. We honor those who, under conditions of war, mass extermination, and totalitarianism, fought for dignity, freedom, and human rights, stood up for the vulnerable, and saved human lives, often at the risk of their own.”
The ceremony then moved on to honoring the Righteous of 2025. The dramatic conflict in Ukraine and the destructive violence of the Russian army, which strikes above all and indiscriminately at the civilian population, were at the center of the speeches dedicated to Iryna Tsybukh. She was remembered with emotion by Ewa Wierzynska (a member of the Foundation’s Committee and head of the Jan Karski Educational Foundation) and by the former Polish Ambassador to Ukraine, Marek Ziółowski, who emphasized how, through her work, Iryna showed that a nation exists through memory: “We need a strategy of memory. We remember for those who will come after us,” she had written on her blog. After them, the Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland, Wasyl Bodnar, delivered a strong and courageous speech. Finally, Iryna’s mother, Oksana, who had come especially from Lviv with her younger son Yura, took the floor. Oksana Tsybukh spoke with great dignity and pride, holding back her pain as she described her daughter as a special person who is still present and important to her and to her people. She recalled that immediately after the invasion her daughter decided to go to the front to treat the wounded and to bear witness, via the internet, to what she saw. On her initiative, every day at 9:00 a.m. all of Ukraine stops for one minute to honor the memory of the fallen. Today this is also an act of remembrance of herself—of her courage, determination, and desire for freedom. She recounted that people visit her daughter’s grave and leave messages there, which she collects and shares, thus continuing the commitment of her murdered daughter.
Robert Rohde, Deputy German Ambassador to Poland, and Alicja Bartuś, a member of the Committee and President of the Human Rights Forum of Oświęcim/Auschwitz, honored Sophie and Hans Scholl, who through their leaflets and actions appealed to German society to show civic courage and opposition to the crimes of the regime. They paid the highest price for this. Their solitary yet unwavering stance, the Deputy Ambassador said, became one of the ethical foundations of the reborn democracy in Germany after the war.
The former Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Adam Daniel Rotfeld, was tasked with remembering his friend Marian Turski, a “spokesman for memory and guardian of human dignity,” who throughout his long life confirmed that the words “do not be indifferent” are not only a warning but also the basis for building a community founded on responsibility and mutual respect.
As always (though last year, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary, it was preceded by a major concert by Ludovico Einaudi), the ceremony concluded with music by Karol Szymanowski and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 24, performed by pianist Alessandro Commellato and violinist Francesca Bonaita.
