Besides engaging in mass murder of Jews themselves, the Nazis often deliberately destroyed Jewish houses of worship and cemeteries. Numerous synagogues were also laid waste by the sheer devastation of World War II, and those that remained were neglected in a land with few Jews, ruled by a government that repressed Judaism. Despite all this, Maria and Maciej Piechotka spent much of their lives preserving and documenting Jewish religious architecture in their country. Maciej died in 2010 at the age of ninety, while his wife Maria died last month, just a few weeks after reaching the age of one hundred. Jewish Heritage Europe reports:

The Piechotkas were active in the World War II Polish resistance movement and took part in the 1944 Warsaw uprising [against the Nazis]. At the war’s end they began their efforts to record the architectural detail of destroyed buildings, with a special focus on wooden synagogues. The couple co-authored several books on the subject, including Wooden Synagogues, published in 1957 (with an English edition two years later), which has become the seminal work in the field.

One of the most important research resources on the history and heritage of Polish Jews, the book was updated and reprinted in the 1990s, and a new, expanded edition—in English and Polish—was published in 2016.

Maria was active well into her nineties. Among other things, she worked closely . . . on the creation of the replica of the elaborately painted ceiling of the cupola of the destroyed wooden synagogue in what was Gwozdziec, Poland. The replica is now the centerpiece installation of the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews [in Warsaw].

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.