Rescuers assisting Jews during the Holocaust

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Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul-General in Kaunas, Lithuania, issued thousands of visas to Jews fleeing Poland in defiance of orders from his foreign ministry. The last diplomat to leave Kaunas, Sugihara continued stamping visas from the open window of his departing train.
Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul-General in Kaunas, Lithuania, issued thousands of visas to Jews fleeing Poland in defiance of orders from his foreign ministry. The last diplomat to leave Kaunas, Sugihara continued stamping visas from the open window of his departing train.
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and his colleagues saved as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews by providing them with diplomatic passes.
Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and his colleagues saved as many as 100,000 Hungarian Jews by providing them with diplomatic passes.
Aristides de Sousa Mendes, between June 16 and 23, 1940, frantically issued Portuguese visas, free of charge, to over 30,000 refugees seeking to escape the Nazi terror.
Aristides de Sousa Mendes, between June 16 and 23, 1940, frantically issued Portuguese visas, free of charge, to over 30,000 refugees seeking to escape the Nazi terror.
His Beatitude Andrey Sheptytsky, Metropolitan and leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He and his clergy hid Jews from Nazi agents in monasteries and church basements.
His Beatitude Andrey Sheptytsky, Metropolitan and leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. He and his clergy hid Jews from Nazi agents in monasteries and church basements.

This is a partial list of rescuers who helped Jewish people and others to escape from the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. The list is not exhaustive, concentrating on famous cases, or people who saved the lives of many potential victims. Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel, has recognized over 20,000 Righteous Among the Nations[1] since 1963. The commission, called The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, organized by Yad Vashem and headed by an Israeli Supreme Court justice, has been charged with the duty of awarding people who rescued Jews, the honorary title of the Righteous Among the Nations. As of January 2007, 21,758 people have received such an honor.[2]

Contents

[edit] Most prominent examples

See also: List of Righteous Among the Nations by country

Holocaust Rescuers came from many different countries in the world

[edit] In Poland

Until the end of Communist domination much of Poland's Holocaust history was hidden behind the veil of the Iron Curtain. Poland was the only country where helping a Jew was a crime punishable by death. Yet 6,066 men and women (more than from any other country) have been recognized as rescuers by Yad Vashem in Israel.[3] Their real life stories of courage are just beginning to be told.[4] Many of the rescuers were women and children; and teenagers.[5] Poland unlike any other country during the Holocaust of World War II was under total enemy control – a fact that is often forgotten. Half of Poland was occupied by the Germans including General Government and Reichskomissariat; the other half by the Soviets, along with the territories of today's Belarus and Ukraine. The list of over 2500 Polish citizens officially recognised include 700 names of those who lost their lives while trying to help their Jewish neighbors.[6] There were also groups, such as the Polish Żegota organization, that took drastic and dangerous steps to rescue victims. Witold Pilecki, a member of Armia Krajowa, the Polish Home Army, organized a resistance movement in Auschwitz from 1940, and Jan Karski tried to spread word of the Holocaust. In the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Henryk Iwański leading one of the most daring actions of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) in support of the Jewish fighters.

[edit] In France

The French town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon sheltered several thousand Jews, and similar acts were repeated throughout Europe, as illustrated by the famous case of Anne Frank, often at great risk to the rescuers.

[edit] In Belgium

In April 1943, members of the Belgian resistance held up the twentieth convoy train to Auschwitz, and freed 231 people. Several local governments did all they could to slow down or block the registration processes for Jews they were obliged to perform by the Nazis. Many people saved children by hiding them away in private houses and boarding schools. Of the approximately 50,000 Jews in Belgium in 1940, only about 25,000 were deported though only about 1,250 of the deported did survive.

[edit] In Denmark

The Jewish community in Denmark remained relatively unaffected by Germany's occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940. The Germans allowed the Danish government to remain in office and this cabinet rejected the notion that any "Jewish question" should exist in Denmark. No legislation was passed against Jews and the yellow badge was not introduced in Denmark. In August 1943, this situation was about to collapse as the Danish government refused to introduce the death penalty as demanded by the Germans following a series of strikes and popular protests. During these events, German diplomat Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz tipped off Danish politician Hans Hedtoft that the Danish Jews would be deported to Germany following the collapse of the Danish government. Hedtoft alerted the Danish resistance and Jewish leaders C.B. Henriques and Marcus Melchior who urged the community to go into hiding in a service on 29 August 1943. During the following two months, more than 6,000 of Denmark's 7,500 strong Jewish community was ferried to neutral Sweden hidden in fishing boats. A small number of Jews were captured by the Germans and shipped to Theresienstadt. Danish officials were able to ensure that these prisoners weren't shipped to extermination camps, and Danish Red Cross inspections and food packages ensured focus on the Danish Jews. Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte ensured their release and transport to Denmark in the final days of the war. Denmark rescued around 6,000 Jews en masse in August - October 1943.

[edit] In Bulgaria

The Nazi-allied government of Bulgaria, led by Bogdan Filov, did fully and actively assist in the Holocaust in the areas of Yugoslav Macedonia and Greece which it occupied. On Passover 1943 Bulgaria rounded up the great majority of Jews in its zones of Greece and Yugoslavia, transported them through Bulgaria, and handed them off to German transport to be taken to Treblinka, where almost all were killed. It did not deport its own 50,000 Jewish citizens, after yielding to pressure from the parliament deputy speaker Dimitar Peshev and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The Nazi-allied government of Bulgaria, lead by Dobri Bozhilov, deported a higher percentage of Jews (from the areas of Greece and F.Y.R.O. Macedonia that it occupied) to holding camps in Bulgaria and then onto death camps in the north, than did German occupiers in the region.[7][8] In Bulgarian occupied Greece, the Bulgarian authorities arrested the majority of the Jewish population on Passover 1943.[9][10][11][12][13] The active participation of Bulgaria in the Holocaust however did not extend to its pre-war territory and after various protests by Archbishop Sefan of Sofia and the interference of Dimitar Peshev the planned deportation of the Bulgarian Jews (about 50 000) was stopped.

[edit] In Portugal

Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes issued 30,000 visas to Jews and other persecuted minorities, though it cost him his career in 1941, when Portuguese dictator Salazar forced him out of his job. He died in poverty in 1954. Brazilian diplomat Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas illegally issued Brazilian diplomatic visas to hundreds of Jews in France during the Vichy Government, saving them from certain death. Chiune Sempo Sugihara, Japanese Consul-General in Kaunas, Lithuania, 1939–1940, issued thousands of visas to Jews fleeing Poland in defiance of explicit orders from the Japanese foreign ministry. The last foreign diplomat to leave Kaunas, Sugihara continued stamping visas from the open window of his departing train. After the war, Sugihara was fired from the Japanese foreign service, ostensibly due to downsizing. In 1985, Sugihara’s wife and son received the Righteous Among the Nations honor in Jerusalem, on behalf of the ailing Sugihara, who died in 1986. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, the Italian Giorgio Perlasca, Chinese consul-general to Austria Ho Feng Shan, and others also saved tens of thousands of Jews with fake diplomatic passes.

[edit] In Albania

Albania is reputed to have hid and saved not only all Albanian Jews, but also several hundred Jewish refugees from other countries, including Serbia, Greece, and Austria, although there are those who disagree with this.[14] In 1997, Albanian Muslim Shyqyri Myrto was honored for rescuing Jews, with the Anti-Defamation League's Courage to Care Award presented to his son, Arian Myrto.[15] In 2006, a plaque honoring the compassion and courage of Albania during the Holocaust was dedicated in Holocaust Memorial Park in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, New York, with the Albanian ambassador to the United Nations in attendance.

In 1943, the Nazis asked Albanian authorities for a list of the country's Jews. They refused to comply. "Jews were then taken from the cities and hidden in the countryside," Goldfarb explained. "Non-Jewish Albanians would steal identity cards from police stations [for Jews to use]. The underground resistance even warned that anyone who turned in a Jew would be executed." ... "There were actually more Jews in the country after the war than before — thanks to the Albanian traditions of religious tolerance and hospitality."[16]

[edit] In Finland

The government of Finland refused repeated requests from Germany to deport Finnish Jews to Germany; once with the curt diplomatic note "Finland has no Jewish Problem".

[edit] In Italy

In Rome, some 4,000 Italian Jews and prisoners of war avoided deportation, many of them hidden in safe houses or evacuated from Italy by a resistance group organized by an Irish priest, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty. Once a Vatican ambassador to Egypt, O'Flaherty used his political connections to help secure sanctuary for dispossessed Jews.

[edit] In Norway

German demands for the deportation of Jewish refugees from Norway were largely refused.

[edit] In China

Between 1933 and 1941, the Chinese city of Shanghai accepted unconditionally over 30,000 Jewish refugees escaping the Holocaust in Europe, a number greater than those taken in by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India combined during World War II. After 1941, the occupying Nazi-aligned Japanese ghettoised the Jewish refugees in Shanghai into an area known as the Shanghai ghetto. Some of the Jewish refugees there aided the Chinese resistance against the Japanese. Many of the Jewish refugees in Shanghai migrated to the United States and Israel after 1948 due to the Chinese Civil War (1946–1950).

[edit] Leaders and diplomats

[edit] Religious figures

[edit] Prominent individuals

  • Albert Battel - a German Wehrmacht officer.
  • Albert Bedane - of Jersey, provided shelter to a Jewish woman, as well as others sought by the German occupiers of the Channel Islands.
  • Victor Bodson helped Jews escape from Germany through an underground escape route in Luxembourg.
  • Corrie ten Boom, rescued many Jews in the Netherlands - was sent to Ravensbrück
  • Stefania Podgorska Burzminski and Helena Podgorska at age 16 and 7 (Helena was her sister), they smuggled out of the ghettos and saved thirteen Jews from the liquidation of the ghettos.
  • Sgt.-Major Charles Coward was an English POW who smuggled over 400 Jews out of Monowitz labour camp.
  • Miep Gies, Jan Gies, Bep Voskuijl, Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman hid Anne Frank and seven others in Amsterdam, Holland for two years.
  • Alexandre Glasberg, Ukrainian-French priest who helped hundreds of French Jews escape deportation.
  • Friedrich Kellner, justice inspector, who helped Julius and Lucie Abt, and their infant son, John Peter, escape from Laubach.
  • Stanislaw Kielar – two girls from Reisenbach family
  • Janis Lipke from Latvia, protected and hid around 40 Jews from the Nazis in Riga.
  • Heralda Luxin, young woman who sheltered Jewish children in her cellar.
  • Józef and Stefania Macugowscy, hid six members of the Radza family, and several others, in Nowy Korczyn, Poland.
  • Shyqyri Myrto, Albanian rescuer of Jozef Jakoel and his sister Keti.
  • Dorothea Neff, Austrian stage actress, who hid her Jewish friend Lilli Schiff.
  • Algoth Niska Finnish gentleman rogue and alcohol smuggler; smuggled Jews via the Baltic.
  • Irene Gut Opdyke, Polish hid twelve Jews in a German Major's basement.
  • Jaap Penraat - Dutch architect who forged identity cards for Jews and helped many escape to Spain.
  • Tim Pickert rescued dozens of Jews from the ghettoes of Kraków, Poland to hide them in his windmills located on his estate 23 km northwest of the The Hague, Netherlands.
  • Nicolaus Rossini, helped many Jewish orphans - was executed in Kraków-Płaszów.
  • Irena Sendler, Polish social worker who saved about 2500 Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto.
  • Suzanne Spaak, wealthy socialite who saved Jewish children in France.
  • Marie Taquet-Martens and Major Emile Taquet hid some seventy-five Jewish children in a home for disabled children they were running in Jamoigne-sur-Semois, Belgium.
  • Gabrielle Weidner and Johan Hendrik Weidner, escape network rescued 800 Jews.
  • Bertha Marx and Eugen Marx assisted in saving Jews through the Resistance forces.
  • JUDr Rudolf Štursa, a lawyer, and Jan Martin Vochoč, an Old Catholic priest, in Prague baptised Jews on demand and issued over 1,500 baptism certificates. [30]

[edit] Villages helping Jews

  • Yaruga, Ukraine[31]
  • Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in the Haute-Loire département in France, which saved up to 5,000 Jews.
  • Markowa, Poland, where 17 Jews survived the war. Many families hid their Jewish neighbours there and some paid the ultimate price.
    • Wiktoria and Józef Ulm, their 6 children and unborn baby were shot dead by the Germans for hidding the Szall and Goldman families.
    • Dorota and Antoni Szylar - hid seven members of Weltz family.
    • Julia and Józef Bar - hid five members of Reisenbach family.
    • Michal Bar - hid Jakub Lorbenfeld.
    • Jan and Weronika Przybylak - hid Jakub Einhorn.
  • Tršice, Czech Republic, many people from this village helped hide a Jewish family, six of them were given the honorific of Righteous Among the Nations.
  • Nieuwlande, The Netherlands - during the war this small village contained 117 inhabitants. They unanimously decided in 1942 and 1943 that every household would give shelter to one Jewish household or individual during the war, thus making it impossible that anyone in the small village would betray their neighbours. Dozens of Jews were thus saved. All inhabitants have been honored by Yad Vashem.
  • Moissac, France There was a Jewish boarding home and orphanage in this town. When the mayor was told that the Nazis were coming the older students would go camping for several days, the younger students were boarded with families in the area and told to treat as members of their immediate family and the oldest students hid in the house. When it became too dangerous for the students to stay there any longer they made sure that every student had a safe place to go to. If the students again had to move the counsellors from the boarding house arranged for a new place and even escorted to them to the new housing.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous/index_righteous.html
  2. ^ "The Righteous Among the Nations", Yad Vashem.
  3. ^ http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/yadvashem.htm
  4. ^ http://holocaustforgotten.com/rescuers.htm
  5. ^ http://holocaustforgotten.com/realcourage
  6. ^ http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/list.htm
  7. ^ http://people.virginia.edu/~mjl9g/history1.htm
  8. ^ http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10006804
  9. ^ http://www.kis.gr/drama_en.html
  10. ^ http://www.kis.gr/xanthi_en.html
  11. ^ http://www.kis.gr/komotini_en.html
  12. ^ http://www.kis.gr/kabala_en.html
  13. ^ http://www.kis.gr/alexandroupolis_en.html
  14. ^ http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/060.shtml
  15. ^ http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/2964_52.asp
  16. ^ http://forward.com/main/article.php?ref=yaffa200606291257
  17. ^ http://berlin.mfa.gov.il/mfm/web/main/document.asp?DocumentID=83056&MissionID=88
  18. ^ http://www.raoul-wallenberg.org.ar/Dantas/dantaseng.htm
  19. ^ Rafael Angel Alfaro Pineda. "El Salvador and Schindler's List: A valid comparison," originally in La Prensa Gráfica (in Spanish) April 19, 1994, reproduced in English by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.
  20. ^ El Salvador's Holocaust Hero
  21. ^ http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/233ab/zbaszynmanila/HarrisCysnerZbaszynManila.htm
  22. ^ http://www.westernpeople.com/news/story.asp?j=33591
  23. ^ http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/233ab/zbaszynmanila/HarrisCysnerZbaszynManila.htm
  24. ^ http://www.elreloj.com/article.php?id=1786
  25. ^ Haaretz, 02/03/08 (accessed 02/03/08)
  26. ^ http://www.just-powell.co.uk/winton
  27. ^ http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/greece/greece.pdf
  28. ^ http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%87_%D0%9E%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%8F%D0%BD
  29. ^ "First Arab Nominated for Holocaust Honor", Associated Press, 2007-01-30. Retrieved on 2007-02-01. 
  30. ^ "Tisíc pět set zachráněných životů – Schindler nebyl sám", Denní Telegraf Praha, 1995-06-27, pp. 5. (Czech) 
  31. ^ http://www.zn.ua/3000/3150/23164/

[edit] See also

[edit] External links