Page 45 - Witness

As well, individuals who are now called Righteous Among the Nations risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from murder at the hands of the Nazis. Today, more than 25,000 names of the women and men who have been given this honorific title by the State of Israel appear in Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust Museum. The rescuers hailed from every country in Europe and from every possible background. They were young and old, Christian, Muslim, believers, atheists, society’s aristocrats, and humble peasant farmers. All of them risked life and limb, sometimes for years, to save thousands of Jews who were often complete and utter strangers.
These are people such as Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg – who along with other diplomats such as Carl Lutz, Friedrich Born, Angelo Rotta, and Giorgio Perlasca – saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews and then disappeared into the Soviet Gulag; the German factory owner Oskar Schindler, who boldly rescued more than 1,000 Jews destined for the death camps; and the Polish nurse and underground worker Irena Sendler who, together with fellow Polish underground members, smuggled Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto to live in monasteries and with Polish families under assumed identities. “I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality,” Sendler said. (Sendler was part of Zegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews, an underground resistance effort that helped thousands to find places of safety in occupied Poland.)
The Righteous Among the Nations displayed courage, bravery, and altruism beyond belief. They took enormous risks, and even sacrificed their lives, to save others. It has been aptly stated that the Righteous Among the Nations not only saved Jews during the Holocaust, they also saved the very reputation of humanity.
Dr. Naomi Azrieli reminds us that we must remember this part of the Holocaust story as well. “No one survived the Holocaust without the help of another.” It could have been a hiding place, an extra ration, a pair of shoes – even a kind gesture. It is these acts of nobility we must remember, along with the all-too-familiar acts of Nazi horror and cruelty and the willing participation of their collaborators. Our young people must be given hope for the future and an understanding that evil was indeed resisted during the darkest of times – and can still be confronted today.
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