location: Poland
Creation of the "Żegota” Council to Aid Jews with the Government Delegation for Poland. It was an underground Polish resistance organisation, and its main task was to organise help for Jews in and outside the ghettos in Nazi German occupied Poland. It was the only official state organisation helping Jews in Europe between the years 1939-1945. Operatives of Żegota worked in extreme circumstances – under threat of death by the Nazi forces.
Estimates of the number of Jews that Żegota provided aid to, and eventually saved, range from several thousands to tens of thousands.
The Council to Aid Jews "Żegota" was the continuation of an earlier aid organization, the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews (Tymczasowy Komitet Pomocy Żydom), that was founded on 27 September 1942 by Polish Catholic activists Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz ("Alinka"). The Provisional Committee cared for as many as 180 people, but due to political and financial reasons it was dissolved and replaced by Żegota on 4 December 1942.