Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski was reunited Wednesday with a Jewish man whose family history was tragically intertwined with Komorowski's in World War II. At the start of an official visit to Washington, Komorowski visited the Holocaust Museum with the Polish honorary consul to Jerusalem Zeev Baran, whose father fought alongside Komorowski's in an elite unit of the Polish resistance movement. 'He fought for freedom, dignity and for the right to live. And in the ranks of the fighters, my father met the father and uncle of Bronislaw Komorowski,' Baran, who is now 75, said. Baran's father and Komorowski's teenaged uncle were executed by the Nazis after they were caught carrying weapons. 'The dramatic connection of the past has projected itself onto these days,' said Baran. 'I feel overwhelmed. I am a child of war, born in Vilnius, Poland in 1935. Most of my family perished there, and most of those who survived owe it to the Polish people who risked their lives to save them,' he said. A Polish embassy official told selfnews Komorowski's family had sheltered Baran and his family for part of the war. 'I simply would like to convey to you my deepest and heartfelt feelings for you and your family,' Komorowski, who was elected president of Poland this year in snap elections following the death of president Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash, told Baran in Polish. The two families met in southern Lithuania, which was part of Poland before the war, and were 'together in Paneriai forest, a very sad forest that spelled the end of many Jews and multiple numbers of Polish people,' said Komorowski. The Nazis executed more than 30,000 Jews in Paneriai forest in July 1941, dumping their bodies in pits dug by the Soviets to store fuel. By 1944 some 70,000 people had been killed there, including Jews from the once vibrant Jewish community in Vilnius, which is now the capital of Lithuania, and thousands of Polish intellectuals, resistance fighters and clergymen. As Baran emotionally recalled the links that have bound the two families since World War II, he referred to Komorowski as Bronek, the diminutive of the president's first name, usually used only by close friends and family. Komorowski, who was born seven years after the end of World War II, 'took the trouble to locate me and my family' after he was elected president, said Baran, who emigrated to Israel in 1948 with his mother and brother. 'We met and a true friendship was formed, a friendship that originated in the abyss of the past, symbolizing a comeback of relations and the reconciliation of our people,' said Baran. Komorowski began a two-day official visit to the United States with a tour of the Holocaust Museum, which stands as a memorial to the six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis in World War II. Baran was by his side throughout the museum visit. More than half of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Polish. Many were killed in death camps built by the Nazis on Polish soil, including the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau camp near Krakow, where at least one million perished. At a meeting later Wednesday at the White House, President Barack Obama praised the the 'steady hand and leadership' that Komorowski has shown at the helm of Poland since the April accident that claimed the lives of Kaczynski, Polish first lady Maria Kaczynska, and scores of officials. Obama called the April 10 plane crash 'a tragedy that broke the hearts not only of the Polish people but caused the entire world to grieve,' hailing the resilience shown by the Polish people after the latest tragedy to beset their country. 