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WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — A letter signed by a group of 50 Poles honored by Yad Vashem with the title of Righteous Among the Nations appeals to the governments of both Israel and Poland to return “to the path of dialogue and reconciliation.”

“Please do not write the history anew,” reads the letter sent Monday to the prime ministers of Israel and Poland.

“The greatest tragedy in the history of both our nations was once and for all recorded during the dark night of the Nazi occupation, the victims of which we are still all of today,” wrote the group of Righteous Among the Nations. They admit that “as in everyone, also in our nation, there were wicked people, [who] acted on their own behalf, not on behalf of the Polish state.” Signatories of the letter stressed that those people were members of Polish nation. “We were also afraid of them,” they said.

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The letter was signed by the members of the Polish Society of the Righteous Among the Nations – a non-governmental organization founded in 1985 on the initiative of people honored by the State of Israel as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews during World War II.

Now, the Righteous are urging “our two nations, united by a nearly 1000-year-old common history, to build a covenant and a future in Poland, Europe, Israel and America, based on friendship, solidarity and truth.”

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