Catholic 'guardian of memory' preserves Poland's Jewish past

On Sept. 1, Poles remembered the German invasion of their country that took place 75 years ago, marking the start of World War II. The Holocaust and five years of brutal Nazi oppression followed. The Nazis' murder of 6 million Jews took place, for the most part, on Polish soil.

Jan Jagielski, a 77-year-old Polish Catholic, deals with the legacy of that mass murder each day. A retired chemist, he now works at Warsaw's Jewish Historical Institute in the Documentation of Monuments and Photo Archive. His retirement work reflects his vow to never forget the 3 million Jewish people from Poland who were victims of the Holocaust.

"This is my eternal obligation, to be a guardian of memory," he said during an interview in his Warsaw office. His work helps counter a growing Holocaust denial, especially among the nation's youth, he said. "It was unprecedented. We must remember it."

Jagielski's affinity for Jews and interest in the Holocaust began during his high school days in communist Poland. He attended a secular high school in Warsaw, where many of his schoolmates were Holocaust survivors or children of Holocaust survivors.