This year the John Paul II Public Elementary School in Krościenko Wyżne and the Commission of National Education Secondary School in Dynów joined in the commemoration of the National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German occupation organized by the Museum and Memorial Site in Bełżec. The students participated in the on-line classes "Righteous Among the Nations. Testimonies and dilemmas of Poles rescuing Jews during World War II"

National Day of Remembrance of Poles Rescuing Jews under German occupation was established on the initiative of the President of the Republic of Poland in 2018. This day is celebrated on March 24 and has a national character. The date chosen for the celebrations - March 24 - is symbolic. On this day in 1944, the Ulma family was executed in the village of Markowa in the Podkarpacie region. The German gendarmerie then murdered Józef Ulma, his pregnant wife Wiktoria with their six minor children, and the eight Jews they were hiding. The execution was a punishment for helping Jews.

Unknown Heroes - Polish Righteous from Bełżec and the surrounding area.

Henryk Luft was a Jew born near Lviv. As few years' old child, he was carried on a death transport to the German extermination camp in Bełżec. This is how he told his story to Stanisław Obirek, who described it in an article entitled “The Long Shadow of Bełżec”:

"We arrived from Lviv in the morning, I managed to slip out of the wagon, two other appendages with me. They ran to one side and were shot on the spot, I managed to escape. I knocked on the window of one of the houses. An old woman opened it and gave me bread and warm milk. She showed me how to get to Rawa Ruska - we had a pharmacist relative there. On the way, I met a peasant with a cart, and when I asked him if it was far to Rawa, he said - get in. I woke up by the same railway tracks in Bełżec. He simply told me to get off the wagon and drove off. Miraculously a woman came with two milk cans, I grabbed one and walked along with her. When asked by the Ukrainian guard, she replied - "to nasz" (he is ours). This saved me. It is a long story. But there's no point in going back to it".

Henryk Luft returned to Bełżec, trying to find a home, to learn the names of the women who had saved his life, but unfortunately, he did not succeed. He supported the local school in its initiative to name the now non-existent Bełżec Junior High School after the Righteous Among the Nations. In 2005, he met with young people at the Museum and Memorial Site in Bełżec, where he told them about his experiences. He encouraged the students to be proud of their country and culture, and of the fact that during the Holocaust righteous and courageous people lived in Bełżec, thanks to whom he is still alive.

During a ceremony, on 1st September 2015, a Junior High School in Bełżec was named after Righteous Among the Nations. To conclude the event, a plaque was unveiled honouring the Righteous. Among the remembered were Julia Pępiak, Cecylia, and Maciej Brogowski as well as an unknown woman who saved Henryk Zvi Luft from death in the Bełżec death camp.

Elżbieta Ważna was posthumously awarded the medal and honorary diploma "Righteous Among the Nations" at a ceremony held on 11 November 2017.

Elżbieta was born in 1886 in the village of Rogoźno-Kolonia near Tomaszów Lubelski. During the war, she served a three-and-a-half-month prison sentence for illegally slaughtering a pig. She shared her cell with Chana Szpizajren, a Jewish woman accused of murdering a Pole who worked for the Gestapo. Chana was arrested at the end of 1941. The Pole was shot by the Polish underground, but the charge was brought against Chana because she had spoken to him shortly before his death. After leaving prison, Elżbieta helped Chana to be released. She succeeded in this by giving a bribe to a guard. Fearing for her safety, she decided to prepare a hiding place for her in the attic of her sister's house in the village of Podhorce near Tomaszów Lubelski. After about 3 months, she transported Chana in a cart to her house in the village of Majdanek where she spent the next two years.

After the war, Elżbieta and Chana left the village for Tomaszów Lubelski due to the persecution by some of their neighbours. In 1947 Chana left for Łódź and later for Israel. The two women remained friends for many years. Elżbieta Ważna died in 1971.

Documenting the history of the aid given to the Jewish population in Bełżec and its surroundings is still current and new facts emerge despite the passage of many years.