The paper describes Ładoś, who headed Poland’s unofficial legation in Switzerland during the war, as the “Polish Oskar Schindler,” saying that he and his team “were covertly issuing passports and identity documents from South American countries to those at risk of being exterminated.”
Over the course of three years, it is thought the group issued 5,000 documents to 10,000 people, mostly Polish Jews facing death in Auschwitz or trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, in one of the largest rescue operations of WWII, the Daily Mail reported.
Among those saved in the operation was Mirjam Finkelstein, mother of British politician and newspaper editor Lord Daniel Finkelstein, the Daily Mail said in its story.
It added that “while the majority of recipients were Polish, particularly in the early stages of the operation, it later expanded to include significant numbers of Dutch and Germans.”
Some small numbers of passports were also issued to citizens of Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland, according to the British newspaper.
“Few official records of the operation exist, but using serial numbers on the passports, researchers from the Pilecki Institute in Poland have been able to estimate that between 3,800 and 5,200 documents were issued,” the Daily Mail also said.
Since many were issued to families, investigators believe these documents covered between 8,300 and 11,400 people, the newspaper reported.
(mk/gs)