Poland obtains archive of diplomats’ efforts to rescue Jews

Poland has obtained a World War II-era archive that documents the efforts of Polish diplomats in Switzerland to get Jews out of Europe by issuing phony passports from Latin American countries.

The Culture Ministry and the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum announce that Poland had obtained the archive after more than a year of negotiations with a private owner in Israel.

The ministry and the museum say 330 people were known to have survived the Holocaust as a result of having one of the faked passports, and another 387 were killed despite having the false documents. The fate of 430 others has not been determined.

The rescue effort was led by the Polish ambassador to Switzerland, Aleksander Lados, and included three other Polish diplomats and two representatives of Jewish organizations. The archive is named for one of the Jewish representatives, Rabbi Chaim Eiss, who died of a heart attack in late 1943.

— AP