Polish ex-minister who saved Jews during WWII buried
Knesset speaker says death of Wladyslaw Bartoszewski ‘a huge loss’ for humanity
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WARSAW, Poland — European Council president Donald Tusk and German President Joachim Gauck attended the state funeral ceremonies on Monday for Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Poland’s former foreign minister and a former Auschwitz prisoner who helped save Jews from the Holocaust.
Bartoszewski, a historian, writer and politician, died suddenly on April 24 at the age of 93. He was Poland’s deputy minister for dialogue with Germany and Israel.
A member of underground World War II resistance, Bartoszewski helped save Jews and was honored by Israel with the title of the Righteous Among Nations. He was later persecuted under communism for his democratic views. He served twice as democratic Poland’s foreign minister.
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein marked Bartoszewski’s death on Monday, calling it “a huge loss, not only to Poland and the State of Israel, but to humanity, which lost a moral voice that didn’t hesitate to speak out, even at a heavy personal cost.”
“The Israeli Knesset bows its head in appreciation and deep gratitude,” Edelstein said in the plenum.
Mozart’s Requiem was played during the funeral Mass at Warsaw’s Gothic St. John Arch-Cathedral, as soldiers stood guard by Bartoszewski’s wooden coffin covered with Poland’s white-and-red national flag. Present were Bartoszewski’s widow, Zofia Bartoszewska, his son from previous marriage, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, and family members.
“He was 100 percent a decent person and at the same time followed his common sense,” said Tusk, Poland’s former prime minister in whose government Bartoszewski was charged with foreign dialogue from 2007-2014.
“He used to say that his biography of an Auschwitz prisoner and a Righteous Among Nations gave him the right to tell (Poland’s) partners all that he considered important. And he said it. And he inspired respect,” Tusk said, adding that Bartoszewski was also a joyful person.
Gauck stressed that Bartoszewski had “wisdom” and because of that was “often right.”
“We have lost a friend, a person worth of emulating, a wonderful person,” Gauck said.
He ended with a “thank you” in Polish.
Bartoszewski was later buried with state honors, to the sound of the national anthem, at Warsaw’s military Powazki cemetery.
The Times of Israel Community.