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MP pays emotional tribute to Polish man who saved his great uncle from the Nazis

The sewage maintenance worker hid groups of Jews underground

June 6, 2018 08:30
MP Alex Sobel (pictured with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn)
1 min read

A Jewish MP has paid emotional tribute to the sewage maintenance worker who saved his great-uncle from certain death at the hands of the Nazis.

Alex Sobel told MPs how Leopold Socha hid groups of Jews, including Mr Sobel's relative Yehuda Mildiner, in the sewers for 13 months in the Lwów Jewish ghetto, in what was then Poland.

He was speaking during a parliamentary debate about antisemitism fuelled by the country's new Anti-Defamation Law which makes it a crime to attribute Nazi crimes to Poland.

The MP, whose family came to Britain from Israel in 1971, told the debate: "When the Nazis occupied Poland, Leopold witnessed the suffering of the Jewish people and decided he was going to try to rescue at least 20 Jews from the ghetto.