List of individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust

Contents

This is a partial list of rescuers who helped Jewish people and others to escape from the Nazi Holocaust during World War II, possibly the most well-known among whom was Oskar Schindler. The list is not exhaustive, concentrating on famous cases, or people who saved the lives of many potential victims. Since 1963, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Israel, has recognized 22,216[2] people as Righteous among the Nations (as of January 1, 2008). 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.

Most prominent examples

See also: List of Righteous among the Nations by country

Holocaust rescuers came from many different countries in the world.

In the Netherlands=

The majority of Dutch were bystanders but approximately ten percent were involved in resistance activities and perhaps a fraction of one percent of those in the resistance took up the dangerous work of trying to hide or otherwise rescue Jews. Miep Gies, the woman who tried to save Anne Frank and her family, is one of the most famous because of the wide dissemination of The Diary of Anne Frank, but there were thousands of others, notably Geertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer (also known as Truus Wijsmuller and tante Truus), who saved many Jewish children, and Dutch consul in Lithuania Jan Zwartendijk, who saved some 3 000 to 6 000 people. But also including Corrie ten Boom, industrialist Frits Philips, publisher Geert Lubberhuizen, writer Godfried Bomans, and also Hetty Voute, Gisela Wieberdink, Rut Matthijsen, Piet Meerberg, Heiltje Kooristra, and Ted Leenders, M.J.Bultena in Uithuizen who was hunted and shot to death by the Nazis after World War II was over, for helping so many, see commemorative stone on Bultenastraat Uithuizen.

Books that report on these individuals include the Corrie ten Boom classic The Hiding Place, No Time for Tears, the story of Truus Wijsmuller-Meijer, The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers and Their Stories of Courage[3] by Mark Klempner, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust by Malka Drucker, Saving the Children by Dutch historian Bert Jan Flim, and Miep Gies' own book, Remembering Anne Frank. Of course, The Diary of Anne Frank also provides vivid descriptions of the efforts Miep and her husband made to try to help the Frank family survive, and keep their hiding place from being discovered by the Nazis, as well as from those Dutch who were collaborating with the Nazis. These days in Amsterdam, visitor may visit both the Anne Frank House and the Resistance Museum to learn more about efforts the Dutch made to resist the Nazis and to protect those targeted by the Nazis for destruction.

In Poland

Main article: Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust

Until the end of Communist domination much of German-occupied Poland's Holocaust history was hidden behind the veil of the Iron Curtain. Poland was the only country where any help provided to a person of Jewish faith or origin was punishable by death, see Polish Righteous among the Nations. Yet 6,195 men and women (more than from any other country in the world) have been recognized as rescuers by Yad Vashem in Israel.[4][5] Their real life stories of courage are just beginning to be told.[6] Many of the rescuers were women and children; and teenagers.[7] Poland during the Holocaust of World War II was under total enemy control, 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 Polish citizens officially recognised as Righteous include 700 names of those who lost their lives while trying to help their Jewish neighbors.[8] 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 Greece

The Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture writes "One cannot forget the repeated initiatives of the head of the Greek Christian Orthodox Metropolitan See of Thessaloniki, Gennadios, against the deportations, and most of all, the official letter of protest signed in Athens on March 23, 1943, by Archbishop Damaskinos of the Greek Orthodox Church, along with 27 prominent leaders of cultural, academic and professional organizations. The document, written in a very sharp language, refers to unbreakable bonds between Christian Orthodox and Jews, identifying them jointly as Greeks, without differentiation. It is noteworthy that such a document is unique in the whole of occupied Europe, in character, content and purpose".[9] The 275 Jews of the island of Zakynthos, however, survived the Holocaust. When the island's mayor, Lucas Κarrer (Λουκάς Καρρέρ), was presented with the German order to hand over a list of Jews, Bishop Chrysostomos returned to the amazed Germans with a list of two names; his and the mayor's. Moreover, the Bishop wrote a letter to Hitler himself stating that the Jews of the island were under his supervision.[10] In the meantime the island's population hid every member of the Jewish community. When the island was almost levelled by the great earthquake of 1953, the first relief came from the state of Israel, with a message that read "The Jews of Zakynthos have never forgotten their Mayor or their beloved Bishop and what they did for us."[11] The Jewish community of Volos, one of the most ancient in Greece, has had fewer losses than any other Jewish community in Greece thanks to the timely and dynamic intervention and mobilization of the massive communist-leftist partizan movement of EAM-ELAS (National Liberation Front (Greece) - Greek People's Liberation Army) and the successful cooperation of the head of the Greek Christian Orthodox Metropolitan See of Demetrias Joachim and the chief rabbi of Volos Moses Pesach for the evacuation of Volos from the Jewish people, after the events in Thessaloniki (displacement of the city's Jews to concentration camps). Princess Alice of Battenberg and Greece, who was the wife of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom stayed in occupied by the Axis powers Athens during the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations" at Yad Vashem. Although the Germans and Bulgarians[12] deported a great number of Greek Jews, others were successfully hidden by their Greek neighbours.

In France

The French town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon sheltered several thousand Jews. The Brazilian diplomat Luis Martins de Souza Dantas illegally issued Brazilian diplomatic visas to hundreds of Jews in France during the Vichy Government, saving them from almost certain death.

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, about 25,000 were deported—though only about 1,250 survived.Marie and Emile Taquet sheltered Jewish boys in a residential school or home.

In Denmark

Main article: Rescue of the Danish Jews

The Jewish community in Denmark remained relatively unaffected by Germany's occupation of Denmark on April 9, 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 September 29, 1943. During the following two months, more than 7,500 of Denmark's 8,000 strong Jewish community were 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 7,500 Jews en masse in August - October 1943.

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, led by Dobri Bozhilov, deported a higher percentage of Jews (from the areas of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia that it occupied) to holding camps in Bulgaria and then onto death camps in the north, than did German occupiers in the region.[13][14] In Bulgarian occupied Greece, the Bulgarian authorities arrested the majority of the Jewish population on Passover 1943.[15][16][17][18][19] The active participation of Bulgaria in the Holocaust however did not extend to its pre-war territory and after various protests by Archbishop Stefan of Sofia and the interference of Dimitar Peshev the planned deportation of the Bulgarian Jews (about 50 000) was stopped.

In Portugal

Portuguese diplomat in France, 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 and in disgrace with the government in 1954; decades of efforts eventually resulted in the clearing of his name and, later, in his posthumously receiving the restoration of his diplomatic honors, a promotion to ambassador, and the national honors of the Cross of Merit and the Order of Liberty. In Hungary, the diplomats Carlos de Sampayo Garrido and Alberto Teixeira Branquinho also helped many Jews escape Nazis and their Hungarian allies.[20]

In Spain

In Franco's Spain, several diplomats contributed very actively to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. The two most prominent ones were Ángel Sanz Briz (the Angel of Budapest), who saved around five thousand Hungarian Jews by providing them Spanish passports, and Eduardo Propper de Callejón, who helped thousands of Jews to escape from France to Spain. Other diplomats with a relevant role were Bernardo Rolland de Miota (consul of Spain at Paris), José Rojas Moreno (Ambassador at Bucharest), Miguel Ángel de Muguiro (diplomat at the Embassy in Budapest), Sebastián Romero Radigales (Consul at Athens), Julio Palencia Tubau, (diplomat at the Embassy in Sofía), Juan Schwartz Díaz-Flores (Consul at Vienna) and José Ruiz Santaella (diplomat at the Embassy in Berlin).

In Lithuania

Chiune Sempo Sugihara, Japanese Consul-General in Kaunas, Lithuania, 1939–1940, issued thousands of visas to Jews fleeing German-occupied 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.

In Albania

Albania is reputed to have hidden and saved not only all Albanian Jews, but also several thousands of Jewish refugees from other countries, including Serbia, Greece, and Austria. 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.[21] 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."[22]

In Finland

The government of Finland generally refused to deport Finnish Jews to Germany. It has been said that Finnish government officials told German envoys that "Finland has no Jewish Problem". However, the Secret Police Valpo secretly slated more than 50 Jews, mostly refugees from Germany and Austria for deportation. After public protests the deportations were officially cancelled but 8 Jews were nevertheless deported in 1942. Moreover, it seems highly likely that Finland deported Soviet POWs, among them a number of Jews. The majority of Finnish Jews however, were protected by the government's co-belligerence with Germany. Their men joined the Finnish army and fought on the front.

In Italy

The situation in Italy was somewhat peculiar in that, notwithstanding Mussolini's proclamation against Jews, most Italians had no personal hatred against them. Liliana Picciotto, the historian of the archive of Fondazione Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea (Foundation Center for the Contemporary Jewish Documentation) writes that of the 32.300 Jews living in Italy under German occupation, only 8,000 were arrested, whereas 23,500 escaped unharmed. She speculates that the overall percentage of Jews who survived in Italy owed this to the solidarity the persecuted found among the local population.

In Fiume (northern Italy, today Croatian Rijeka), Giovanni Palatucci, after the promulgation of racial laws against Jews in 1938 and at the beginning of war in 1940, as chief of the Foreigners' Office, forged documents and visas to Jews threatened by deportation. He managed to destroy all documented records of the some 5,000 Jewish refugees living in Fiume, issuing them false papers and providing them with funds. Palatucci then sent the refugees to a large internment camp in southern Italy protected by his uncle, Giuseppe Maria Palatucci, the Catholic Bishop of Campagna. Following the 1943 capitulation of Italy, Fiume was occupied by Nazis. Palatucci remained as head of the police administration without real powers. He continued to clandestinely help Jews and maintain contact with the Resistance, until his activities were discovered by the Gestapo. The Swiss Consul to Trieste, a close friend of his, offered him a safe pass to Switzerland, but Giovanni Palatucci sent his young Jewish fiancée instead. Palatucci was arrested on September 13, 1944. He was condemned to death, but the sentence was later commuted to deportation to Dachau, where he died.

Two other Italians distinguished themselves for aiding Jews, though outside of Italy: Giorgio Perlasca, who under the guises of Spanish ambassador in Budapest, was able to put under his protection thousands of Jews and non-Jews destined to concentration camps; and Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, future Pope John XXIII, assisted many Jews and non-Jews to escape by issuing "transit visas" from the Apostolic Delegation in Istanbul, Turkey, in 1944.

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, Hugh O'Flaherty. Once a Vatican ambassador to Egypt, Haiti, Santo Domingo and Czechoslovakia, Fr. O'Flaherty used his political connections to help secure sanctuary for dispossessed Jews.[23] Delia Murphy, wife of the Irish ambassador, assisted him. While Vatican was on decent terms with Mussolini and the Pope disliked leftists Pope Pius XII allowed church efforts to use churches and resources to smuggle Jews out. Many priests, including a future Cardinal and future Archbishops, participated. The Vatican also reportedly had an ambassador persuade Franco to allow Jews to flee across the French border with Spain.

On 19 July 1944 the Gestapo rounded up the nearly 2000 Jewish inhabitants of the island of Rhodes, which had been governed by Italy since 1912. Of the approximately 2,000 Rhodesli Jews who were deported to Auschwitz and elsewhere, only 104 survived.

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, New Zealand, South Africa and British India combined during World War II. Japanese government ensured Jewish safety in China, Japan and Manchuria.[24] Japanese Army received Jewish refugees, General Hideki Tōjō received Jewish refugees in accordance with Japanese national policy and rejected German protest.[25] After 1941, the occupying Nazi-aligned Japanese ghettoised the Jewish refugees in Shanghai into an area known as the Shanghai ghetto. Many of the Jewish refugees in Shanghai migrated to the United States and Israel after 1948 due to the Chinese Civil War (1946–1950).

Leaders and diplomats

Religious figures

Prominent individuals

Villages helping Jews

For more details on Polish villages helping Jews, see Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust.

Others

See also

References

  1. ^ David G. Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa (2000). Jews in the Japanese mind: the history and uses of a cultural stereotype. Lexington Books. p. 112. ISBN 0739101676. http://books.google.com/books?id=R_PQLj2D1DQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jews+in+the+Japanese+mind:+the+history+and+uses+of+a+cultural+stereotype#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  2. ^ http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/statistics.html
  3. ^ http://www.hearthasreasons.com
  4. ^ [1]
  5. ^ Yad Vashem - The Righteous Among Nations
  6. ^ Holocaust Rescuers - Stories of Courage
  7. ^ Women and Children of Courage
  8. ^ List of Poles Killed Helping Jews During the Holocaust
  9. ^ The Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, p.2
  10. ^ Η Απίστευτη Ιστορία των Εβραίων της Ζακύνθου
  11. ^ Zakynthos: The Holocaust in Greece, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, URL accessed April 15, 2006.
  12. ^ Glenny, p.508
  13. ^ http://people.virginia.edu/~mjl9g/history1.htm
  14. ^ The Holocaust in Macedonia: Deportation of Monastir Jewry
  15. ^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  16. ^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  17. ^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  18. ^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  19. ^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  20. ^ "Spared Lives: The Actions of Three Portuguese Diplomats During World War II". The Newark Public Library. August 24, 2000. http://www.npl.org/pages/ProgramsExhibits/PressReleases/sl82000.html. Retrieved 2009-07-28. 
  21. ^ Adl Commemorates Holocaust Day At City Hall; Honors Albanian Rescuer And Recognizes Jewish Survivor
  22. ^ Jewish News, Jewish Newspapers - Forward.com
  23. ^ Mary Gaffney. "Profile of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty". Terrace Talk. http://www.terracetalkireland.com/profiles/hugh.htm. Retrieved 14 November 2008. 
  24. ^ David G. Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa (2000). Jews in the Japanese mind: the history and uses of a cultural stereotype. Lexington Books. p. 111. ISBN 0739101676. http://books.google.com/books?id=R_PQLj2D1DQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jews+in+the+Japanese+mind:+the+history+and+uses+of+a+cultural+stereotype#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  25. ^ a b David G. Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa (2000). Jews in the Japanese mind: the history and uses of a cultural stereotype. Lexington Books. p. 113. ISBN 0739101676. http://books.google.com/books?id=R_PQLj2D1DQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jews+in+the+Japanese+mind:+the+history+and+uses+of+a+cultural+stereotype#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  26. ^ a b c http://www.sosuanews.com/index.php?id=1055&article=1
  27. ^ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/sosua.html
  28. ^ "Sugihara not the only Japanese to save Jewish lives". Asahi shimbun. 2010-05-04. http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201005030206.html. Retrieved 2010-10-20. 
  29. ^ The Israeli Government's Official Website, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  30. ^ "The Righteous Among Us", Yad Vashem Magazine
  31. ^ Rafael Angel Alfaro Pineda. "El Salvador and Schindler's List: A valid comparison", originally in La Prensa Gráfica (Spanish) April 19, 1994, reproduced in English by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.
  32. ^ El Salvador's Holocaust Hero
  33. ^ a b From Zbaszyn to Manila, by Bonnie Harris, 2005
  34. ^ Western People: Roundfort cabaret honours legendary Delia Murphy
  35. ^ Diplomáticos que salvaron judíos durante el Holocausto | Especiales | Israel en Tiempo de Noticias. Judaismo y Pueblo Judio a diario. El Reloj.com
  36. ^ "Gilberto Bosques Saldívar, the 'Mexican Schindler,' is honored by the Anti-Defamation League", Los Angeles Times, 1 Dec 2008
  37. ^ Haaretz, 02/03/08 (accessed 02/03/08)
  38. ^ Winton's Children - Index Page
  39. ^ a b David G. Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa (2000). Jews in the Japanese mind: the history and uses of a cultural stereotype. Lexington Books. p. 111. ISBN 0739101676. http://books.google.com/books?id=R_PQLj2D1DQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Jews+in+the+Japanese+mind:+the+history+and+uses+of+a+cultural+stereotype#v=onepage&q&f=false. 
  40. ^ The Holocaust in Greece
  41. ^ http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ковч_Омелян
  42. ^ "First Arab Nominated for Holocaust Honor". Associated Press. 2007-01-30. Archived from the original on 2007-08-31. http://web.archive.org/web/20070831213921/http://www.beliefnet.com/story/211/story_21108_1.html. Retrieved 2007-02-01. 
  43. ^ "Tisíc pět set zachráněných životů – Schindler nebyl sám" (in Czech). Denní Telegraf Praha. 1995-06-27. pp. 5. 
  44. ^ ЯРУГА: СЕЛО-ПРАВЕДНИК. Борис ХАНДРОС | История | Человек

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