The News, Poland
March 7 2015
Mandela to be honoured in Poland’s ‘Garden of the Righteous’
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 07.03.2015 12:21
The late anti-apartheid figurehead and South African president Nelson
Mandela is among three people set to be honoured in the newly launched
Garden of the Righteous in Warsaw.
The forthcoming memorials were announced on Friday night, chiming in
with the European Day of the Righteous, a commemorative day
established by the European Parliament in 2012. Although the day was
inspired by the ‘righteous gentiles’ that risked their lives to save
Jews from the clutches of the Nazis during World War II, the European
Day of the Righteous is likewise dedicated to opponents of all forms
totalitarianism and injustice. Hence the honouring of three figures
this year who were not directly linked to the Holocaust of Jews.
Besides Mandela, the committee of the Garden of the Righteous honoured
Petro Grigorenko (d.1987), a pioneer of human rights in Soviet Russia.
Also selected was former governor of Ankhara Hasan Mazhar Bey, who
tried to protect the Armenians under Ottoman Turkish rule from
genocide in 1915.
Trees will be planted in Warsaw’s Garden of the Righteous, which was
opened in 2014, on 27 April this year in memory of the three figures.
Last year, among those honoured was Jan Karski, the WWII resistance
courier who endeavoured to inform the West about the extent of the
German Nazis’ extermination programme against the Jews. Friday’s gala
was held at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. The
Polish capital’s Garden of the Righteous was inspired its counterpart
in Jerusalem. Over 6400 ethnic Poles are commemorated there for aiding
Jews during World War II. (nh)
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