Poland obtains archive of Polish effort to save Jews in WWII

WARSAW, Poland – Polish has obtained a World War II-era archive that documents an effort by Polish diplomats in Switzerland to save Jews by issuing forged passports to Latin American countries.

Hundreds of people were saved by the operation.

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

Polish Culture Minister Piotr Glinski called the archive “irrefutable proof that Poles, the Polish state, its representatives, systemically and institutionally were involved in saving Jews during World War II.”

The documents will go on display for several months in Bern, Switzerland, before becoming part of the archival collection at the Auschwitz memorial, the site where Nazi Germany killed some 1.1 million people.