1. Memories of Courage

The Holocaust is not only a story of destruction and loss; it is a story of an apathetic world and a few rare individuals of extraordinary courage.

• The "Righteous Among the Nations" Title and Program offered by the State of Israel
  through Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
  
  • 'Righteous Gentiles'
    [This is the phrase used for those non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
    At Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, over 20,000 'Righteous Gentiles' are honored; with some 5,800 Poles.]
    
  • Who, exactly, is a Righteous Gentile?
    
• TO SAVE ONE LIFE
  The Story of Righteous Gentiles
  
• Catholic Heroes of the Holocaust
  
• Catholic Martyrs of the Holocaust
  
• Polish Righteous
  
  
  • 
    Henryk Slawik, a Polish Righteous Recognized in 1990
    of Saving Thousands of Jewish and Non-Jewish Lives from Hungary
    
  • Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy
    http://www.savingjews.org/docs/clergy_rescue.pdf
    

    If you do not have

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• German anti-Nazi cleric, Cardinal Clemens August von Galen, heads for sainthood
  
• The Simon Wiesenthal Center Photo Album of the Righteous
  
• From Yad Vashem: Statistics and Some Profiles of the Righteous by Country
  
• From Yad Vashem: Solidarity and Rescue
  Romanian Righteous Among the Nation
  
  • Theodor Criveanu of Romania
    Awarded Posthumously by Yad Vashem
    The "Righteous Among the Nations" Title
    
• Bambili's Rigteuous Among The Nations website
  
  
  

• Khaled Abdelwahhab of Tunisia First Arab Nominated for the "Righteous Among the Nations" Holocaust Honor

• A List Of Holocaust Rescuers
  Courtesy of Florida Center for Instructional Technology,
  College of Education, University of South Florida, USA.
  

  O F B L E S S E D M E M O R Y

  # Joseph Andre was a Belgian abbot who helped rescue hundreds of Jewish children and encouraged them to remain in the Jewish faith. # Germaine Belline and Liliane Gaffney explain how they hid 30 Jews in Belgium. # Ivan Beltrami was able to use his position as an intern to protect Jews in a hospital infirmary. # Esther Bem relates how she and her family were hidden in an Italian village. # Marie Benoit was a French Capuchin monk who arranged for the rescue of thousands of Jews. # Bert Bochove describes at length how he and his wife Annie saved the lives of many Jews in Holland during the war. # Anna and Jaruslav Chlup cared for Herman Feder, a Jewish man who escaped from a train on its way to a death camp. # John Damski barely escaped execution while a Polish political prisoner. Upon release he helped many Jews in Poland to escape the ghetto, obtain false documents, and find work. # Jean Deffaugt, mayor of a French town on the Swiss border, aided Jews caught crossing the border. # Marc Donadille was a Protestant minister who rescued about 80 Jewish children in France. # Miep Gies was one of those who attempted to hide Anne Frank and her family. # Marie-Rose Gineste harbored Jews in Montauben, France. # The Gorniak Family hid Jews in their hayloft. # Marian Halicki hid a group of Jews in his workroom. # Hermann Friedrich Grabe used his position as a foreman to employ and protect many Jews. # Paul Gruninger was a Swiss official who disobeyed his government by allowing some thirty-six hundred Jews to cross illegally into Switzerland. # Emilie Guth and Ermine Orsi were French Protestants who hid Jews in the Le Chambon area of France. # Franciska Halamajowa hid Jews in her hayloft and cellar. # Adelaide Hautval was a French physician who defied the Nazis and assisted those in need at Auschwitz and Birkenau. # Esta Heiber tells how she was able to rescue 20 Jewish children in Belgium. # Father Jacques de Jésus was a Carmelite friar and headmaster of the Petit Collège Sainte-Thérèse de l ' Enfant-Jésus. His attempt to rescue four Jewish boys is remembered in the film Au Revoir les Enfants. # Father Jacques' stay in Mauthausen and Gusen camps is remembered at this site. # Antonin Kalina, a Communist political prisoner, was able to protect 1,300 children in Buchenwald. # Helen L. tells how an older Russian soldier's compassion helped save her life. # Barbara Szymanska Makuch chronicles her aid to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Nazis imprisoned her for her work in the underground. # Laura Margolis' relief efforts among the Jewish refugees in the Shanghai ghetto saved many lives. # Mihael Michaelov explains how he helped Jews in Bulgaria during the Holocaust. # Ellen Nielsen tells how she helped Jews escape by boat to Sweden. # Marion P., a Dutch rescuer, hid a number of Dutch Jews. (Photo, video, audio, and text) # Dimitar Peshev helped to rescue Jews in Bulgaria. # Mirjam Pinkhof worked with Joop Westerweel in Holland, finding refuge for German children who had been sent there by their parents for safety after Kristallnacht. # Tina Strobos tells the story of an active member of the Dutch underground. # Pastor Andre Trocme lead an effort in the French Protestant village of Le Chambon to save some 3,000-5,000 Jews.

  O F B L E S S E D M E M O R Y

  
  

• Twelve Jesuit Priests Awarded with "The Righteous Among the Nations" Title Roger Braun (1910-1981) - France Pierre Chaillet (1900-1972) - France Jean-Baptist De Coster (1896-1968) -- Belgium Jean Fleury (1905-1982) -- France Emile Gessler (1891-1958) -- Belgium John B. Janssens (1889-1964) - Belgium Alphonse Lambrette (1884-1970) -- Belgium Emile Planckaert (1906-2006) - France Jacob Raile (1894-1949) -Hungary Henri Revol (1904-1992) - France Adam Sztark (1907-1942) - Poland Henri Van Oostayen (1906 -1945) -Belgium Credit: Rev. Vincent A. Lapomarda, S.J., College of the Holy Cross, MA, USA. <webapps.holycross.edu/departments/library/website/hiatt/righteous.htm>

  
  
• Rescuers Speech
  
• Three Great Acts of Heroism and Humility
  
  

 

 

2. Two Countries, Denmark and Bulgaria, that Stood Out and Made a Difference

The Holocaust and Denmark --A Country of Blessed Memory Five Pictures from the German-occupied Denmark that speak volumes... Denmark was the only Nazi-occupied country that managed to save 95% of its Jewish residents. Following a tip-off by a German diplomat, thousands of Jews were evacuated to neutral Sweden. This is one of the great untold stories of World War II: In 1943, in the German occupied Denmark, the Danes found out that all 7,500 Danish Jews were about to be rounded up and deported to German death camps. The Danish people made their own decision: it's not going to happen ... The Rescue of Danish Jews Denmark was the only occupied country that actively resisted the Nazi regime's attempts to deport its Jewish citizens. On September 28, 1943, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German diplomat, secretly informed the Danish resistance that the Nazis were planning to deport the Danish Jews. The Danes responded quickly, organizing a nationwide effort to smuggle the Jews by sea to neutral Sweden. Denmark During the German Occupation The Rescue of the Jews of Denmark by the Danish People More on the Rescue of the Danish Jews Rescue in Denmark Two Rescuers of the Danish Jews Danish Holocaust Rescuer Knud Dyby: One of the Righteous Knud Dyby, Danish Rescuer    When Germans would ask what illness the Jews were suffering from, sympathetic [Danish] nurses would reply, "German measles." Holocaust Witness Downplays Heroics --------> See also the book: "Boats in the Night: Knud Dyby's involvement in the rescue of the Danish Jews and the Danish Resistance" by Martha Loeffler [1999, Lur Publications] Preben Munch-Nielsen, Danish Rescuer of Jews Tells story of Simple Humanity "We didn't recognize Jews as Jews, but as Danes" --Preben Munch-Nielsen The Danish Boat The National Museum of Denmark /Museum of Danish Resistance: Pictures of the Rescue of the Danish Jews in Oct. 1943 .

Bulgaria -- A Most Significant and Complex Case of the Holocaust

King Boris III --a Hero or a Villain of the Holocaust? King Boris III (left) in a peril game of defiance and compromise with Hitler: that led saving almost all of his 50,000 Bulgarian Jews at the expense of some 12,000 Jews from Macedonia and Thrace

In 1945, the Jewish population of Bulgaria was still about 50,000, its prewar level. Next to the rescue of Danish Jews, Bulgarian Jewry's escape from deportation and extermination represents the most significant exception of any Jewish population in Nazi-occupied Europe. [USHMM] During the war, German-allied Bulgaria did not deport Bulgarian Jews. Bulgaria did, however, deport non-Bulgarian Jews from the territories it had annexed from Yugoslavia and Greece. [USHMM] The Bulgarian people rallied support for the Jews under the leadership of King Boris III, whose personal defiance of Hitler and refusal to supply troops to the Russian front or cooperate with deportation requests set an example for his country. [ADL]    Salvation of Bulgarian Jews during WW II: Collection of Materials King Boris III Honored by the United States Congress On the Ambivalence of How the Deeds of King Boris III Need to be Observed  [In July of 2000, Israel makes the decision that all the monuments in its Bulgarian Forest be removed.] Two Bulgarian Clergymen Named as Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews during the Holocaust: Bishop Stephan, the Head of the Sofian Church, and Bishop Kiril, the Head of the Plovdiv Church Bulgarian clergymen honored as Righteous Reference Material On the Saving of Bulgarian Jews from the Holocaust: From Martin Gilbert's Book "The Holocaust" (1985; Holt, Rinehart & Winston) From Internet Selection of Collected Materials .

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3. Names of Some True Heroes of the Holocaust:

3A). Raul Wallenberg and Oscar Schindler --Two Legendary Rescuers of Jews

Another Photo of Raoul Wallenberg at his desk in Budapest. Raoul Wallenberg at his office in Budapest.	One Man Can Make a Difference: Raoul Wallenberg Raoul Wallenberg and the Rescue of Jews in Budapest A Hero for Our Time A Hero Without a Grave The Collection of the Five Commemorative Stamps Honoring Raoul Wallenberg: from Israel, Sweden, The United States, Argentine, and Uruguay The Raoul Wallenberg Stamp issued by the Government of Israel's Postal Service in 1983 Holocaust Hero Honored on an United StatesPostage Stamp Profile of a Leader: The Wallenberg Effect Remembering Raoul Wallenberg Homage to Raoul Wallenberg Through Images	To see an enlarged Schutz-Pass, please click in here.
"Here is a man who had the choice of remaining in secure, neutral Sweden when Nazism was ruling Europe. Instead, he left this haven and went to what was then one of the most perilous places in Europe. And for what? To save Jews. He won this battle and I feel that in this age when there is so little to believe in -- so very little on which our young people can pin their hopes and ideals -- he is a person to show the world, which knows so little about him. That is why I believe the story of Raoul Wallenberg should be told ..." -- Attorney Gideon Hausner, Prosecutor of Adolf Eichmann.
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	Oskar Schindler: One of a Kind Oskar Schindler: An Unlikely Hero Oscar Schindler Stories Oscar Schindler Stories and KZ camp at Plaszow Schindler's List Teaching Guide The Later Years of Oskar Schindler Holocaust Survivors from the Schindler's List
. 3B). Nicholas Winton of UK, Jan Karski of Poland, and Zerah Warhaftig, a founding father of modern Israel --Saviors of Thousands of Jewish Lives
Nicholas Winton, the Schindler of Britain 'Britain's Schindler' Knighted
	Jan Karski [Jan Kozielewski] (1914-2000) --a young Roman Catholic Pole that tried to stop the Holocaust ... Jan Karski: A Hero of the Holocaust Jan Karski, a World War II Polish Resistance Hero, Dies at 86 (July 13, 2000)
A Rare Historic Photograph: Sugihara with Warhaftig [Courtesy of Visas For Life Foundation] (not to be confused with Eric Saul's Bogus "Visas For Life" Exhibit Project)		Zerah Warhaftig: Thousands of Jews Saved An Appreciation on Zerah Warhaftig

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3C). Varian Fry and Martha & Rev. Waitstill Sharp --the Only Americans Recognized by Yad Vashem as Heroes of the Holocaust

3D). Diplomats that Made a Difference

Most, but not all, of Europe's consulates turned Jews away.

3E). Ordinary People that Became Extraordinary Through Their Acts of Humanity and Courage

In the dark history of the Holocaust, we can see a few, very few, shining examples of courage and defiance against the overwhelming evil. In the face of cruelty and danger, some people refused to be bystanders and acted, often paying with their own lives. May their blessed memory stay forever in the conscience of humanity. Irena Adamowicz, (1910 -1963), Christian Pole who aided various ghetto underground movements during World War II.  Born in Warsaw, Adamowicz was a religious Catholic and one of the leaders of the Polish scout movement. She earned her social work degree at the University of Warsaw. During the 1930s she developed an attachment to the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir Jewish Zionist Youth Movement, and she even took part in its educational and social work activities.   During the summer of 1942 Adamowicz risked her life by carrying out perilous missions for the Jewish underground organizations in the Warsaw, Bialystok, Vilna, Kovno, and Siauliai ghettos. She both carried important messages between the different ghettos and boosted the morale of the Jews imprisoned in them. She also helped to establish contact between the Jewish underground organizations and the Home Army (the Polish underground militia).    After the war, Adamowicz stayed in close contact with the surviving members of the Zionist pioneer movements she had worked with and aided. She was designated as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. [Source: Yad Vashem] . Irena Sendlerowa ("Jolonta"), (1916-), Christian Pole who aided various ghetto underground movements during World War II.    As head of the children's section of Zegota, the Polish underground Council for Aid to Jews, social worker Irena Sendlerowa ("Jolonta") helped smuggle more than 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto. Hiding them in orphanages, convents, schools, hospitals, and private homes, she provided each child with a new identity, carefully recording in code their original names and placements so that surviving relatives could find them after the war. Arrested by the Gestapo (German secret state police) in the fall of 1943, Sendlerowa was sentenced to death. Zegota rescued her before execution. She assumed a new identity and continued her work for Zegota. [Source: USHMM] . Ona Simaite, (1899-1970), of Lithuania Ona Simaite, a librarian at Vilna University, used her position to aid and rescue Jews in the Vilna ghetto. Entering the ghetto under the pretext of recovering library books from Jewish university students, she smuggled in food and other provisions and smuggled out literary and historical documents. In 1944, the Nazis arrested and tortured Simaite. She was then deported to Dachau and later transferred to a concentration camp in southern France. She remained in France following her liberation. [Source: USHMM] . Joop Westerweel (1899-1944), of The Netherlands A teacher in a progressive school, Joop Westerweel helped organize an escape route for young Jews fleeing the Netherlands during the German occupation. From December 1942 through 1944, his underground group smuggled between 150 and 200 Jews to Belgium, on to France, and from there into Switzerland and Spain. Captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in the Vught concentration camp, Westerweel was tortured but refused to reveal his network of contacts. He was executed on August 1, 1944. [Source: USHMM] . Johan Benders (01.07.1907 - 06.04.1943), of The Netherlands . Johan Benders took his own life rather than reveal the whereabouts of those Jews whom he had helped to rescue. He was a teacher at the Amsterdam Lyceum where he had made no secret of his anger over the expulsion of Jews from the school. Benders had encouraged the older students, such as Tineke Guilonard*, to become involved in the falsification of identity and ration cards. Johan's wife, Gerritdina, who worked as a speech therapist, assisted wherever possible, and the couple opened their home as a temporary shelter for Jews. [Source: Yad Vashem]

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During the German occupation, the Bogaards saved more than 300 Jews, many of whom were children. Shown are two Bogaard brothers holding hands with young Jewish guests on their farm, 14 miles southwest of Amsterdam.

Father Bruno, a Belgian monk of blessed memory saved 320 Jewish children. <sussex.ac.uk/press_office/media/media533.shtml>

... Genia then and 55 years latter ...   Reunited in New York in 1998 by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous The "Righteous" Polish Christian Julian Bilecki saving the life of the Jewish Polish girl Genia Melzer ... Julian then and 55 years latter ...

• John Damski, Polish Rescuer, Tells His Story
  

Captain László Ocskay of Hungary: A Man Who History Must Never Forget (Posthumously Honored as "Righteous Among Nations" in Kigston, New York, USA on April 27, 2003) -------> see also Dan Danieli's research paper on the forgotten Hungarian hero, Captain Ocskay

• Julian Bilecki and Family: Polish Heroes that Hid and Saved 23 Jews
  
• Bert Bochove and his wife Annie from The Netherlands gave shelter to twenty-six Jews in hiding
  
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a church leader who stood in courageous opposition to the Fuehrer and his policies
  
• Jaruslav (Jerry) Chlup and his wife Anne from Czechoslovakia
  
• The Gorniak Family
  
• Irene Gut: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
  
• Francisca Halamajowa --a Righteous Gentiles Polish Catholic Woman
  
• Herbert Herden, 89, of Germany
  Honored by Israel in 2004 with the "Righteous Among Nations" Medal for saving Polish Jews
  

Pardoning the Righteous: Switzerland Pardons Jewish Refugee Helpers Police Chief Paul Grueninger of St Gallen, Switzerland. ---------> see also, The Paul Grueninger Foundation Aimée Stauffer-Stitelmann, the first Swiss to seek pardon for the wartime "crime" of aiding Jews.

• Marian Halicki
  

  Rudolf "Rudy" Hansen of "Blessed Memory": A Rescuer In Our Midst Father Jacques de Jésus (born Lucien Bunel in 1900) Nikolai Koblas of Moldova --the Saver of one Jewish Girl Mrs. Kowalchik (of Poland) saved a little Jewish girl, [Gloria A. Glantz (née Przepiorka)], from the Holocaust by hiding her in the farmhouse that she owned Bratislawa Kurpi -- a Polish Catholic Nursemaid who Had Hidden a Jewish Boy in her home in Vilna, baptized him and raised him as her own son

Dr. Janus Korczak, a Jewish pediatrician from Poland, was a writer, educator, founder of an original system of education, and patron of children to whom he remained faithful to the end. Not wanting to abandon the orphans entrusted to his care in the Warsaw ghetto when they were condemned to death by the Nazis, Korczak refused a chance to save himself. He was voluntarily deported, with the children of his orphanage, on August 6, 1942 and died with them at Treblinka. [Photo Credit: Meczenstwo Walka, Zaglada Zydów Polsce 1939-1945. Poland. No. 234.] Memoral sculpture for Dr. Korczak from Israel, at right. [For detail, please click on the picture.]    Israeli Memorial Stamp ."Janusz Korczak and the Children" at Yad Vashem The Janusz Korczak Living Heritage Association .A Tributary Drawing to Dr. Janusz Korczak by Jo Polak, a Dutch teacher at Farelcollege, Ridderkerk, The Netherlands [For Jo Polak, Dr. Korczak represents a source of continuous inspiration in his daily work wth youngsters.] . In Orphans' Twilight, Memories of a Doomed Utopia From Israel remembering Janusz Korczak .

• .Of Blessed Memory ... Remembrance of Poles Who Gave Their Lives to Save Jews

The Romanian/Hungarian Controversial Figure Rezso (Rudolf or Israel) Kasztner [1906 - 1957] Kasztner was a leader of the rescue activity in Budapest. He believed that negotiating with the Nazis was the only way to rescue Jews and was successful in smuggling Jews out of Poland and saving 2 transports of Jews from Bergen-Belsen. Kasztner was accused of "dealing with the devil" and was murdered in the 1950's.

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• Barbara Szymanska Makuch, Polish Rescuer of Jews
  
• Ura Margolis, Rescuer of Jews (Died, at the age of 93, on September 9, 1997)
  
• Aristedes Mendes, Portuguese Ambassador to France During the War
  
• Jean-Marie and Benoît Musy: Father and Son Holocaust Rescuers that saved some 1200 Jews from the Holocaust
  
  • The Original "Musy List" from 1944 That Contains Several Hundred Names
    
• Preben Munch-Nielsen, Danish Holocaust Rescuer
  

  "I don't understand that to act in a decent way is so unique..."

• Halina Szymanska Ogrodzinska,
  Polish Rescuer and the sister of Barbara Szymanska Makuch, Tells her Story
  
  
• Giovanni Palatucci, Unlikely Holocaust Italian Hero, Honored by Yad Vashem
  
  
• Monsignor Beniamino Schivo --the Protector and Saver of Two German Jews
  
• Ona Simaite (of Lithuania ), Joop Westerweel (of The Netherlands), Irena Sendlerowa (of Poland)
  
• France -- Heroes of the Holocaust
  
• Father Antanas Gobis -- a Lithuanian Priest saving a 12 years old Jewish girl as told by Golda Wainberg-Tatz, the daughter whose mother was saved
  
• Righteous Gentiles Who Helped Jews in Lithuania
  
• St. Joseph Church of Bristol, Connecticut, USA, Names Some True Heroes
  
• The Danish Heroes of the Holocaust
  
• List of Poles Killed Helping Jews During the Holocaust
  
• Diplomats of Uncommon Courage
  
• Holocaust Hero: Gut Opdyke --a Polish Catholic woman, who, as a teenager, helped hundreds of Jews survive the Holocaust and author of "Into The Flames" and "In My Hands," shares her Holocaust experiences at Jewish Academy in Agoura Hills, USA
  
• Marion Pritchard, a "Righteous Among Nations": She shot a Nazi to save Jewish children
  
  • Marion Pritchard of the Netherlands Receives Wallenberg Medal for WWII Service
    
• Suzanne and Henri Ribouleau (and their two sons Rene and Marcel) of France
  saved 2 Jewish neighbour children, brother and sister, Leon and Rachel Epstein
  
  Suzanne and Henri Ribouleau
  in 1954 being honored in Israel
  
  
• The Schouten family of The Netherlands saving the little girl Lore Baer
  
  

  		Polish Rescuer Irena Sendler, credited with saving some 2,500 children, awarded with Poland highest Order, the White Eagle Order (Nov. 11, 2003).
  Irena Sendler, Polish Holocaust Hero, Dies at 98

  
  
• Margit Slachta and the early rescue of Jewish families, 1939-42
  
• Tina Strobos, Dutch Rescuer of Jews
  
• André Trocmé, Protestant Pastor of Le Chambon, France
  
• Nikolai Zarenov of Latvia awarded on April 4, 2004 the "Righteous Among Nations" title by Yad Vashem
  
• Dr. Julius Zubli, Dutch Physician and Honored Rescuer Recognized by Yad Vashem
  
• Johanna and Aart Vos of The Netherlands
  
  • Johtje and Aart Vos of the Netherlands hid a Jewish Child that Survived the Holocaust
    
• One Photo: the Jarusz Family
  
• Stories of Moral Courage
  
• Five Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
  
• More Stories of Courage: The Rescuers
  
• Holocaust Survivor Reunited With Rescuer After Some 60 Years!
  
• Album Of Rescuers
  
• Rescuers and Their Profiles
  
• 442 Slovak Righteous Among Nations in a country that was the only one
  to have paid the Nazi Germany to deport its Jews
  
• A story of a U.S. Officer (Lt. John Withers) that broke the rules to let his men take in 2 young Dachau survivors
  
• Hanneke Ippisch, a World War II Dutch Resistance spy and Holocaust witness
  
  

4. Heroes of the Holocaust from the Nazi Germany <>The SS. Dr. Albert Battel --a Righteous Among the Nations Przemysl Ghetto Wilhelm (Wilm) Hosenfeld: The Rescuer of the Polish 'Pianist' (Wladyslaw Szpilman) 60 Years Later, Honoring the German Army Maj. Karl Plagge, an Unlikely Hero of the Holocaust Israel Recognises German Maj Karl Plagge as 'New Schindler' Major Karl Plagge Honored by Yad Vashem  Dr. Hans Münch: A Good Man in an SS Uniform ---> see also, The Meeting of the Holocaust Survivor Eva Kor with Dr. Hans Münch ---> see also, The Testimony of Dr. Hans Münch at Nuremberg Trial Armin T. Wegner (Oct. 16, 1886 - May 17, 1978) of Germany --a Righteous Among the Nations (the only writer in Nazi Germany ever to raise his voice in public against the persecution of the Jews) Heroes of the Holocaust from Germany . Oskar and Emilie Schindler Abegg, Elisabeth*** Althoff, Maria Althoff, Adolf Beitz, Berthold Dr. H.G. Calmeyer Duckwitz, Georg Ferdinand Graebe, Hermann Friedrich Harder, Loni Harder, Albert Luckner, Dr. Gertrud Mörike, Dr. Otto & Gertrud Oppenheim, Baron Friedrich Carl von Rossner, Alfred Schroeder, Gustav Wegner, Armin T. Weidt, Otto Maas, Hermann Lichtenberg, Bernhard *** Elizabeth Abegg, a Berlin school teacher (dismissed by the authorities for her pronounced anti-Nazi views), and a believing Quaker, helped many of her former Jewish students, as well as other Jews in distress, find shelter and comfort and helped secure funds with which they hoped to reach the Swiss border. She fed Jews, sold her own possessions to get money, got ration cards and visas, and found safe places for them in and out of the country. Her help to a group in hiding helped save at least 24 Jewish children.

5. Jewish Rescuers: On the Recognition of Righteous Jews

• The Jewish Foundation of the Righteous: Stories of Moral Courage
  
  
• 
  Hillel Kook [a.k.a. Peter Bergson] (1915-2001)
  
  • Remembering Hillel Kook:
    A Giant of 20th Century Jewish History
    
• Marion van Binsbergen Pritchard, Jewish Holocaust Rescuer in 1942
  
  
• 
  Bruce [born Benzion] Teicholz
  
  
• Mirjam Pinkhof, Jewish Dutch Rescuer

  The Holocaust Rescue efforts of Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl and the Bratislava (Slovakia) "Working Group" The Messages the Zionists Ignored: Rabbi Weissmandel's Plea for Help Pleas to Rescue Jews in the Holocaust Ignored by Zionist Leaders    Rabbi Weismandel (d. 1957) was a Torah Scholar and a leader of the Jewish resistance during World War II. He engaged non-Jewish emissaries to send food, clothing, and money to Jewish deportees who were "settled" in the territories of the General government in Poland. Rabbi Weissmandel was a member of the underground "Working Group" and the founder of the Europe Plan to rescue the survivors of European Jewry. Through his letters he berated the Jewish leadership in the free world for their inactivity toward the Jews in Europe. His letters are collected in his memoir Min Ha Mezzar - From the Depths.  Following the war Rabbi Weissmandel settled in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. where he reestablished the Nitra Yeshiva. Rabbi Weissmandel was a forerunner of the 'computer codifiers' without the aid of a computer, he published material regarding numerology and sequences of letters and numbers in the Bible. [Judaism 101 -- ou.org/about/judaism/rabbis/weissmandel.htm ]

• The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous
  
  

  Ruth Gruber (b. 1911- ): A Life Dedicated to Rescuing her Fellow Jews from Oppression (In 1944, at President Roosevelt's request, she secretly escorted a group of 1,000 Jewish refugees from Italy to America. See her book "From Holocaust to Haven" ) Ruth Gruber Receives Honorary Degree A Biography of Ruth Gruber

  
  
• The "Bergson Boys"
  
  • The Bergsonites' Mission: Rescuing Jews
    
    

   

 

6. The Nameless Rescuers

• Unknown Hero Saved Thousands of Hungarian Jews
  
• Nameless Italian Police Officer Helps Walter Wolf --a Dachau Holocaust Survivor
  
  

7. Tributes to Rescuers:

• A Poem to the Rescuers: They Would Do It Again!
  
• A Memorial Page: Heroes and Rescuers
  
• Keeping the Rescuers in Historical Perspective
  
• From Yad Vashem:
  Solidarity and Rescue --Romanian Righteous Among the Nations
  
  

 

In Front of the Righteous, I Bow
	by Chaim Chefer I hear this title and it makes me think About the people who saved me. I ask and ask "Oh, my dear God, Could I have done the same thing?" In a sea of hate stood my home, Could I shelter a foreign son in my home? Would I be willing along with my family Constantly be threatened by certain evil? Sleepless dark nights watching out for noise Hearing footsteps of certain evil. Would I be able to understand every sign, Would I be ready for this, could I walk like this Among those who would betray Not one day, not one week, but so many years! There a suspicious neighbor, there a look, and here a sound -- For that one -- warm -- brotherly clasping of my hand... Not having any pension -- not having anything for this. Because a person to person must be a people. Because a people comes at this time through-- So I ask you and ask you once more &endash; Could I have done the same if I was in their place? It was they who went to war every day. It was they who made the world a place for me. It was they, the pillars, the Righteous brother, Who this day this world is founded by. For your courage, and for your warm extended hand In front of you , the Righteous, I bow. .
To see the Poem's original Hebrew version from Yad Vashem, please click in here. Its English translation appears in "Those Who Helped" in 1996 and in 1997. (Published by The Main Commision for the Investigation of Crimes Against the Polish Nation and The Polish Society for the Righteous Among the Nations, Warsaw, 1996.) Credits: <savingjews.org>, <citinet.net/ak/polska_27_f2.html>

 

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke, Irish orator, philosopher, and politician (1729 - 1797) Jewish children hiding in a Christian Orphanage in France Courtesy of World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of The Holocaust GENERAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS: I. Holocaust Background Information II. Heroes and Heroines of the Holocaust III. Faces and Voices of Holocaust Survivors IV. Holocaust Studies and Related Topics V. The Holocaust Argumentative Page VI. Holocaust Selected Readings, Photos, and Items of Interest VII. Holocaust Selected Books VIII. Descendants of the Holocaust IX. Holocaust Related News X. Holocaust Memorial Drives