Sunday, June 5, 2016

Individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust

Individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 24,356[1] people as Righteous Among the Nations, most of whom belonging to Poland. (as of 1 January 2013). 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 Righteous Among the Nations.

Most prominent examples[edit]

Holocaust rescuers came from many different countries in the world.

Netherlands[edit]

Poland[edit]


Irena Sendler, member ofŻegota, saved 2,500 Jewish children
Poland had a large Jewish population, and, according toNorman Davies, more Jews were both killed and rescued in Poland than in any other nation: the rescue figure usually being put at between 100,000-150,000.[2] The memorial atBełżec extermination camp commemorates 600,000 murdered Jews and 1,500 Poles who tried to save Jews.[3]Thousands in Poland have been honoured as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, constituting the largest national contingent.[4] Martin Gilbert wrote that many Poles betrayed Jews to the Germans, and that "Poles who risked their own lives to save the Jews were indeed the exception. But they could be found throughout Poland, in every town and village."[5]
Until the end of Communist domination much of German-occupied Poland's Holocaust history was hidden behind the veil of the Iron Curtain. During the World War II Nazi occupation, Poland was the only country where any help provided to a person of Jewish faith or origin was punishable by death. Yet 6,532 men and women (more than from any other country in the world) have been recognized as rescuers by Yad Vashem in Israel.[6][7]
Poland during the Holocaust of World War II was under total enemy control: half of Poland was occupied by the Germans, as the 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.
When AK Home Army Intelligence discovered the true fate of transports leaving the Jewish Ghetto, the Council to Aid Jews –Rada Pomocy Żydom (codename Zegota) - was established in late 1942 in co-operation with church groups. The organisation saved thousands. Emphasis was placed on protecting children, as it was nearly impossible to intervene directly against the heavily guarded transports. False papers were prepared, and children were distributed among safe houses and church networks.[9] Two women founded the movement, the Catholic writer and activist Zofia Kossak-Szczucka and the socialist Wanda Filipowicz. Some of its members had been involved in Polish nationalist movements, which were themselves anti-Jewish, but which became appalled by the barbarity of the Nazi mass murders. In an emotional protest prior to the foundation of the Council, Kossak wrote that Hitler's race murders were a crime of which it was not possible to remain silent. While Polish Catholics might still feel Jews were "enemies of Poland", Kossak wrote that protest was required: "God requires this protest from us... It is required of a Catholic conscience... The blood of the innocent calls for vengeance to the heavens."[10]
]In the 1948-9 Zegota Case, the Stalin-backed regime established in Poland after the war secretly tried and imprisoned the leading survivors of Zegota as part of a campaign to eliminate and besmirch resistance heroes who might threaten the new regime.[11]

Greece[edit]

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".[12]
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.[13] 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."[14]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 a 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 ofPrince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom stayed in occupied Athensduring the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations" atYad Vashem. Although the Germans and Bulgarians[15] deported a great number of Greek Jews, others were successfully hidden by their Greek neighbours.
A touching testimony of 82-year-old Simon Danieli, who traveled from Israel to his birthplace in Veria to thank the descendants of the people who helped him and his family escape Nazi persecution during World War II.
Danieli was 13 in 1942 when his family—father Joseph, a grain merchant, mother Buena, and nine siblings—fled Veria to escape the increasingly frequent atrocities committed by Nazi forces against the city’s Jews. They ended up in a small nearby village in Sykies, where the family was taken in by Giorgos and Panayiota Lanara, who offered them shelter, food and a hiding place in the woods, helped also by a priest, Nestoras Karamitsopoulos. The Nazis, however, soon stormed Sykies, where around 50 more Jews from Veria had also taken refuge. They questioned the priest about the whereabouts of the Jews, but when Karamitsopoulos refused to answer, they began raiding people’s homes. They found Jews hidden in eight homes, and promptly torched the houses. They also turned their wrath on the priest, torturing him and pulling out his beard, according to Danieli.[16]

France[edit]

Père Marie-Benoît was a French Capuchin priest who helped smuggle approximately 4,000 Jews into safety from Nazi-occupied Southern France and subsequently recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous among the Nations in 1966. 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. Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the religious head of the Islamic Center of France helped more than a thousand Jews by providing fake IDs to the Jews of Paris during the German occupation of France. He also managed to hide many Jewish families in the rooms of Paris Mosque as well as in the residencies and women's prayer areas.[17][18][19][20]

Belgium[edit]

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. The Reverend Bruno Reynders was a Catholic Belgian Monk who defied the Nazis (as well as the Vatican, please verify) to work with local orphanages, Nuns and the Jewish and Belgian Underground to forge false identities for Jewish children whose parents willingly gave them up in an attempt to spare their lives faced with deportation to the death camps. Pere Bruno risked his life for his values and to save the lives of an estimated 400 Jewish children and is honored as a Righteous Gentile at Yad Vashem.
L'abbe Joseph Andre is another catholic priest who secured safe hiding places with Belgian families, orphanages and other institutions for Jewish children and adults.

Denmark[edit]

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. The German empire forced the Danish government to shutdown. 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 the Jewish leader C.B. Henriques informed the acting Chief Rabbi Marcus Melchior in the absence of the Chief Rabbi Max Friediger who had already been arrested as a hostage on August 29, 1943, urging the community to go into hiding in a service on September 29, 1943. During the following weeks, more than 7,200 of Denmark's 8,000 strong Jewish community were ferried to neutral Sweden hidden in fishing boats. A small number of Jews, some 450 in all, 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 7,200 Jews en masse in October 1943.

Bulgaria[edit]


Dimitar Peshevfrom National Assembly prevented the deportation of native Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews.[21]
Bulgaria joined the Axis powers in March 1941 and took part in the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece.[22] The Nazi-allied government of Bulgaria, led by Bogdan Filov, fully and actively assisted in the Holocaust in occupied areas. On Passover 1943 Bulgaria rounded up the great majority of Jews in Greece and Yugoslavia, transported them through Bulgaria, and handed them off to German transport 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 theBulgarian Orthodox Church. The Nazi-allied government of Bulgaria deported a higher percentage of Jews (from the areas of Greece and the Republic of Macedonia) than did the German occupiers in the region.[23][24] In Bulgarian occupied Greece, the Bulgarian authorities arrested the majority of the Jewish population on Passover 1943.[25][26][27][28][29] 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. The territories of Greece, Macedonia and other nations occupied by Bulgaria during World War II were not considered Bulgarian – they were only administered by Bulgaria, but Bulgaria had no say as to the affairs of these lands. As to the Jews in the sovereign state of Bulgaria – deportation to the concentration camps was denied. Furthermore, Bulgaria was officially thanked by the government of Israel despite being an ally of Nazi Germany.[30]
Dimitar Peshev was the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria and Minister of Justice during World War II. He rebelled against the pro-Nazi cabinet and prevented the deportation of Bulgaria’s 48 000 Jews. When it came to its own Jewish citizens, the government faced strong opposition from Peshev and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Although Peshev had been involved in various anti-Semitic legislation that was passed in Bulgaria during the early years of the War, the government decision to deport Bulgaria’s 48 000 Jews on March 8, 1943 was too much for Peshev. After being informed of the deportation, Peshev tried several times to see Prime Minister Bogdan Filov but the prime minister refused. Next, he went to see Interior Minister Petar Gabrovski insisting that he cancel the deportations. After much persuasion, Gabrovski finally called the governor of Kyustendil and instructed him to stop preparations for the Jewish deportations. By 5:30 p.m. on March 9, the order was cancelled. After the war, Peshev was charged with anti-Semitism and anti-Communism by the Soviet courts, and sentenced to death. However, after outcry from the Jewish community, his sentence was commuted to 15 years imprisonment, though released after just one year. His deeds went unrecognized after the war, as he lived in poverty in Bulgaria. It was not until 1973 when he was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations. He died the same year.

Portugal[edit]

Historians have estimated that up to one million refugees fled from the Nazis through Portugal during World War II. An impressive number considering the size of the country’s population at that time (circa 6 million).[31] Portugal remained neutral within the overall objectives of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance; and that astute policy under precarious conditions, made it possible for Portugal to contribute to the rescue of a large number of refugees.[32] Portuguese Prime Minister António de Oliveira Salazar allowed all international Jewish organizations.—HIAS, HICEM, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, World Jewish Congress, and Portuguese Jewish relief committees— to establish themselves in Lisbon.[33] In 1944, in Hungary, risking their lives, the diplomats Carlos Sampaio Garrido and Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho, coordinated with Salazar, also helped many Jews escape Nazis and their Hungarian allies.[34] In June 1940, when Germany invaded France, Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes issued visas, indiscriminately, to a population in panic,[35] without asking previous authorizations to Lisbon, as he was supposed to. On June 20 the British Embassy in Lisbon accused the Consul in Bordeaux of improperly charging money for issuing visas and Sousa Mendes was called to Lisbon. The number of visas issued by Sousa Mendes cannot be determined, a 1999 study by the Yad Vashem historian Dr. Avraham Milgram published by the Shoah Resource Center, International School for Holocaust Studies,[36] asserts that there is a great difference between reality and the myth created by the generally cited numbers. Sousa Mendes never lost his title as he kept on being listed in the Portuguese Diplomatic Yearbook until 1954 and kept on receiving his full Consul salary, $1,593 Portuguese Escudos,[37][38] until the day he died.[39] Other Portuguese who deserve further credit for saving Jews during the war are Professor Francisco Paula Leite Pinto and Moisés Bensabat Amzalak. A devoted Jew, and a Salazar supporter, Amzalak headed the Lisbon Jewish community for more than fifty years (from 1926 until 1978). Leite Pinto, General Manager of the Portuguese railways, together with Amzalak, organized several trains, coming from Berlin and other cities, loaded with refugees.[40][41][42]

Spain[edit]

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).

Lithuania[edit]


Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul-General in Kaunas, issued thousands of visas to Jews fleeing Nazi occupied Poland in defiance with Japanese foreign policy.[43]
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.

Albania[edit]

Unlike many other Eastern European countries under Nazi occupation, Albania  which was predominantly Muslim  became a safe haven for Jews.[44] At the end of 1938, Albania was the only remaining country in Europe that still issued visas to Jews through its embassy in Berlin.[45] Following the Nazi occupation of Albania, the country refused to hand over its small Jewish population to the Germans,[46] sometimes even providing Jewish families with forged documents.[44] During the war about 2,000 Jews sought refuge in Albania, and many of them took shelter in rural parts of the country where they were protected by the local population.[44] At the end of the war Albania's Jewish population was greater than it was prior to the war, making it the only country in Europe where the Jewish population increased during World War II.[47] Out of two thousand Jews in total,[48] only five Albanian Jews perished at the hands of the nazis.[46] They were discovered by the Germans and subsequently deported to Pristina.[49]
Between February and March in 1939, King Zog I of Albania granted asylum to 300 Jewish refugees before being overthrown by the Italian fascists in April the same year. When the Italians requisitioned the Albanian puppet government to expel its Jewish refugees, the Albanian leaders valiantly refused, and in the following years 400 more Jewish refugees found sanctuary in Albania.[50

Refik Veseli was the first Albanian to be awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations,[51] having declared afterwards that betraying the Jews "would have disgraced his village and his family. At minimum his home would be destroyed and his family banished".[52] On July 21, 1992, Mihal Lekatari, an Albanian partisan from Kavajë was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. Lekatari is noted for stealing blank identity papers from the municipality of Harizaj and distributing identity papers with Muslim names on them to Jewish refugees.[53] 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.[54] In 2006, a plaque honoring the compassion and courage of Albania during the Holocaust was dedicated in Holocaust Memorial Park in Sheepshead Bayin BrooklynNew York, with the Albanian ambassador to the United Nations in attendance.[note 1]
During the war, some parts of Kosovo and Macedonia which were occupied by the Axis powers were annexed to Albania, and an estimated 600 Jews were captured in these territories, and consequently killed.[56]

Finland[edit]

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 deported 8 Jews in 1942 who had criminal records. 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.
The most notable Finnish individual involved in aiding the Jews was Algoth Niska (1888-1954). Niska had been smuggler during the Finnish prohibition, but had run into financial troubles after its end in 1932, so when Albert Amtmann, an Austrian-Jewish acquaintance, expressed his concerns over his people's position in Europe, Niska quickly saw a business opportunity in smuggling Jews out of Germany. The modus operandi was quickly established. Niska would forge Finnish passports and Amtmann would acquire the customers, who with their new passports would able to cross the border out of Germany. All in all Niska falsified passports for 48 Jews during 1938 and earned 2,5 million Finnish marks ($890,000 or £600,000 in today's money) selling them. Only three of the Jews are known to have survived the Holocaust while twenty were certainly caught. The fates of the other twenty-five are not known. Involved in the operation with Niska and Amtmann were Major Rafael Johannes Kajander, Axel Belewicz and Belewicz's girlfriend Kerttu Ollikainen whose job was to steal the forms on which the passports were forged.[57][58]

Italy[edit]

Despite Benito Mussolini's close alliance with Hitler, Italy did not adopt Nazism's genocidal ideology towards the Jews. The Nazis were frustrated by the Italian forces' refusal to co-operate in the roundups of Jews, and no Jews were deported from Italy prior to the Nazi occupation of the country following the Italian capitulation in 1943.[59] In Italian-occupied Croatia, the Nazi envoy Siegfried Kasche advised Berlin that Italian forces had "apparently been influenced" by Vatican opposition to German anti-Semitism.[60] As anti-Axis feeling grew in Italy, the use of Vatican Radio to broadcast papal disapproval of race murder and anti-Semitism angered the Nazis.[61] Mussolini was overthrown in July 1943, and the Nazis moved to occupy Italy, commencing a round-up of Jews. Though thousands were caught, the great majority of Italy's Jews were saved. As in other nations, Catholic networks were heavily engaged in rescue efforts.[note 2]
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.
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.
Giorgio Perlasca, 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.
Martin Gilbert wrote that, in October 1943, with the SS occupying Rome and determined to deport the city's 5000 Jews, the Vatican clergy had opened the sanctuaries of the Vatican to all "non-Aryans" in need of rescue in an attempt to forestall the deportation. "Catholic clergy in the city acted with alacrity", wrote Gilbert. "At the Capuchin convent on the Via Siciliano,Father Benoit saved a large numbers of Jews by providing them with false identification papers [...] by the morning of October 16, a total of 4,238 Jews had been given sanctuary in the many monasteries and convents of Rome. A further 477 Jews had been given shelter in the Vatican and its enclaves." Gilbert credited the rapid rescue efforts of the Church with saving over four fifths of Roman Jews.[62]
Other Righteous Catholic rescuers in Italy included Elisabeth Hesselblad.[63] She and two British women, Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough and Sister Katherine Flanagan have been beatified for reviving the Swedish Bridgettine Order of nuns and hiding scores of Jewish families in their convent.[64] The churches, monasteries and convents of Assisi formed theAssisi Network and served as a safe haven for Jews. Gilbert credits the network established by Bishop Giuseppe Placido Nicolini and Abbott Rufino Niccaci of the Franciscan Monastery, with saving 300 people.[65] Other Italian clerics honoured byYad Vashem include the theology professor Fr Giuseppe Girotti of Dominican Seminary of Turin, who saved many Jews before being arrested and sent to Dachau where he died in 1945; Fr Arrigo Beccari who protected around 100 Jewish children in his seminary and among local farmers in the village of Nonantola in Central Italy; and Don Gaetano Tantalo, a parish priest who sheltered a large Jewish family.[66][67][68] Of Italy's 44,500 Jews, some 7,680 were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust.[69]

Vatican City State[edit]


The Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence, was thrown open to Jews fleeing the Nazi roundups in Northern Italy. In Rome, Pope Pius XII had ordered the city's Catholic institutions to open themselves to the Jews, and 4715 of the 5715 people listed for deportation by the Nazis were sheltered in 150 institutions – 477 in the Vatican itself.
In the 1930s, Pope Pius XI urged Mussolini to ask Hitler to restrain the anti-Semitic actions taking place in Germany.[70] In 1937, the Pope issued the Mit brennender Sorge (German"With burning concern") encyclical, in which he asserted the inviolability of human rights.[71][note 3]

Pius XII
Pope Pius XII succeeded Pius XI on the eve of war in 1939. He used diplomacy to aid the victims of the Holocaust, and directed the Church to provide discreet aid.[78] His encylicals such as Summi Pontificatus and Mystici corporis preached against racism —with specific reference to Jews: "there is neither Gentile nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision".[79] His 1942 Christmas radio address denounced the murder of "hundreds of thousands" of "faultless" people because of their "nationality or race". The Nazis were furious and The Reich Security Main Office, responsible for the deportation of Jews, called him the 
When the Nazis came to Rome in search of Jews, the Pope had already days earlier ordered the sanctuaries of the Vatican City be opened to all "non-Aryans" in need of refuge and according to Martin Gilbert, by the morning of October 16, "a total of 477 Jews had been given shelter in the Vatican and its enclaves, while another 4,238 had been given sanctuary in the many monasteries and convents of in Rome. Only 1,015 of Rome's 6,730 Jews were seized that morning".[83] Upon receiving news of the roundups on the morning of 16 October, the Pope immediately instructed Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione, to make a protest to the German ambassador. After the meeting, the ambassador gave orders for a halt to the arrests. Earlier, the Pope had helped the Jews of Rome by offering gold towards the 50 kg ransom demanded by the Nazis.[84]"mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals".[80] He intervened to attempt to block Nazi deportations of Jews in various countries.[81]
Following the capitulation of Italy, Nazi deportations of Jews to death camps began. Pius XII protested at diplomatic levels, while several thousand Jews found refuge in Catholic networks. On 27 June 1943, Vatican Radio broadcast a papal injunction: "He who makes a distinction between Jews and other men is being unfaithful to God and is in conflict with God's commands".[82]Other noted rescuers assisted by Pius were Pietro Palazzini[85] Giovanni Ferrofino,[86] Giovanni Palatucci, Pierre-Marie Benoit and others. When Archbishop Giovanni Montini (later Pope Paul VI) was offered an award for his rescue work by Israel, he said he had only been acting on the orders of Pius XII.[84]
Pius' diplomatic representatives lobbied on behalf of Jews across Europe, including in Vichy France, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia, Germany itself and elsewhere.[76][84][87][88][89][90] Many papal nuncios played important roles in the rescue of Jews, among them Giuseppe Burzio, the Vatican Chargé d'Affaires in Slovakia, Fillipo Bernardini, Nuncio to Switzerland and Angelo Roncalli, the Nuncio to Turkey.[91] Angelo Rotta, the wartime Nuncio to Budapest and Andrea Cassulo, the Nuncio to Bucharest have been recognised as Righteous Among the Nations.
Pius directly protested the deportations of Slovakian Jews to the Bratislava government from 1942.[92] He made a direct intervention in Hungary to lobby for an end to Jewish deportations in 1944, and on July 4, the Hungarian leader, Admiral Horthy, told Berlin that deportations of Jews must cease, citing protests by the Vatican, the King of Sweden and the Red Cross.[93] The pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic Arrow Cross seized power in October, and a campaign of murder of the Jews commenced. The neutral powers led a major rescue effort and Pius' representative, Angelo Rotta, took the lead in establishing an "international Ghetto", marked by the emblems of the Swiss, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish and Vatican legations, and providing shelter for some 25,000 Jews.[94]In Rome, some 4,000 Italian Jews and escaped prisoners of war avoided deportation, many of them hidden in safe houses or evacuated from Italy by a resistance group organized by the Irish-born priest, and Vatican official Hugh O'Flaherty. Msgr. O'Flaherty used his political connections to help secure sanctuary for dispossessed Jews.[95] The wife of the Irish ambassador, Delia Murphy, assisted him.

Leaders and diplomats[edit]


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.

Chinese Consul Ho Feng-Shan in Vienna who freely issued thousands of visas to Jews.
  • Per Anger – Swedish diplomat in Budapest who originated the idea of issuing provisional passports to Hungarian Jews to protect them from arrest and deportation to camps. Anger collaborated with Raoul Wallenberg to save the lives of thousands of Jews.
  • Władysław Bartoszewski – Polish Żegota activist.
  • The Most Illustrious duke Roberto de Castro Brandão – Brazilian diplomat and nobleman who issued diplomatic visas and passports to Jews in Marseilles, France. He was later deported, along with his daughter Maria-Theresa marchioness Siciliano di Rende and later Lady Pretyman, née de Castro Brandão, and his son, Brazilian Ambassador, current duke Guy Marie de Castro Brandão, as a diplomatic prisoner in the Rheinhotel Dreesen in Bad Godesberg where Hitler used to go regularly. He stayed there until the end of the war and was exchanged with German soldiers imprisoned by the Allies.
  • Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg – Swedish diplomat, who negotiated the release of 27,000 people (a significant number of which were Jews) to hospitals in Sweden.
  • Jacob (Jack) Benardout – British diplomat to Dominican Republic before and during World War II. Issued numerous Dominican Republic visas to Jews in Germany. Only 16 Jewish families arrived in the Dominican Republic (the other Jews dispersed to countries along the way, e.g. Britain, America) and so created the Jewish community of the Dominican Republic. [this citation is unsupported by evidence from any other source and should be treated as dubious until further evidence is provided]
  • Hiram Bingham IV – American Vice Consul in Marseilles, France 1940–1941.
  • José Castellanos Contreras – a Salvadoran army colonel and diplomat who, while working as El Salvador's Consul General for Geneva from 1942–45, and in conjunction with George Mantello, helped save at least 13,000 Central European Jews from Nazi persecution by providing them with false papers of Salvadoran nationality.
  • Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz – German diplomatic attaché in Denmark. Alerted Danish politician Hans Hedtoft about the imminent German plans deport to Denmark's Jewish community, thus enabling the following rescue of the Danish Jews.
  • Gisi Fleischmann led the Bratislava Working Group, one of the most important rescue groups, in partnership with Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl. They successfully negotiated with the Nazis in early 1942 to stop the transports from Slovakia and a few months later, via the Europa plan, to try to stop transports from other parts of Europe. They demanded bombing of the rail lines to Auschwitz and authored/distributed he famous Auschwitz Report in 1944 (also called the Wetzler-Vrba Report).
  • Frank Foley – British MI6 agent undercover as a passport officer in Berlin, saved around 10,000 people by issuing forged passports to Britain and the British Mandate of Palestine.
  • Rafael Leónidas Trujillo – the Dominican dictator promised to receive 100,000 Jewish refugees into the Dominican Republic in 1938 when Franklin D. Roosevelt organised an international conference in Evian to discuss the persecution of the Jews. Dominican Republic was the only nation accepting Jews immigrants after the conference.[99] The DORSA (Dominican Republic Settlement Association) was formed to settle Jews on the northern coast. 5,000 visas were issued but only 645 European Jews reached the settlement. The refugees were assigned land and cattle and the town of Sosúa was founded.[99] 5000 dollars in gold from Jewish International in New York were paid for each person taken by the Trujillo.[99] Other refugees settled in the capital Santo Domingo.[100][101]
  • Albert Göring – German businessman (and younger brother of leading Nazi Hermann Göring) who helped Jews and dissidents survive in Germany
  • Paul Grüninger – Swiss commander of police who provided falsely dated papers to over 3,000 refugees so they could escape Austria following the Anschluss.

Paul Grüninger, commander of the police of the Canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland, who provided falsely dated papers from late 1938 to autumn 1939 to over 3,000 refugees so they could escape Austria.[102][103]
  • Kiichiro Higuchi – Japanese lieutenant general who saved 20,000 Jewish refugees.[104]
  • Wilm Hosenfeld – German officer who helped pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew, among many others.
  • Seishirō Itagaki – Japanese Army Minister who proposed and adopted a Japanese national policy to receive Jew refugees.[105]
  • Lyndon B. Johnson – Future President of the United States who, as a member of theUnited States House of Representatives in 1938, helped Austrian conductor Erich Leinsdorf gain permanent residency in the United States. Johnson later helped Jews enter the U.S. through Latin America and become workers on National Youth Administration projects in Texas.[106]
  • Prince Constantin Karadja – Romanian diplomat, who saved over 51,000 Jews from deportation and extermination, as credited by Yad Vashem in 2005.[107]
  • Jan Karski – Polish emissary of Armia Krajowa to Western Allies and eye-witness of the Holocaust.
  • Necdet Kent – Turkish Consul General at Marseille, who granted Turkish citizenship to hundreds of Jews. At one point, he entered an Auschwitz-bound train at enormous personal risk to save 70 Jews, to whom he had granted Turkish citizenship, from deportation.
  • Fumimaro Konoe – Japanese Prime Minister who adopted a Japanese national policy to receive Jew refugees.[105]
  • Zofia Kossak-Szczucka – Polish founder of Zegota.
  • Hillel Kook (aka Peter Bergson) established a US based rescue group, which had considerable support in the Congress and Senate. The group's activism was the major factor forcing President Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board in January 1944. One of the WRB's important actions was initiation and sponsoring of the Wallenberg mission to Budapest.
  • Carl Lutz – Swiss consul in Budapest, protected tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary.
  • Luis Martins de Souza Dantas – Brazilian in charge of the Brazilian diplomatic mission in France. He granted Brazilian visas to several Jews and other minorities persecuted by the Nazis. He was proclaimed as Righteous among the Nations in 2003.[108]
  • George Mantello (b. Mandl Gyorgy) – El Salvador's honorary consul for Hungary, Romania, and Czechoslovakia – provided Salvadoran protection papers for thousands of Jews. He spearheaded an unprecedented Swiss grassroots protests and press campaign. It led to Roosevelt, Churchill and other world leaders threatening Hungary's ruler, regent Miklos Horthy with post-war retribution if the transports don't stop. That ended the deportation of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz.[109][110]
  • Boris III of Bulgaria- King of Bulgaria from 1918–1943 Resisted demands from Hitler to deport the Jews resulting in all 50,000 being spared, Boris died in 1943 after meeting with Hitler.
  • Paul V. McNutt – United States High Commissioner of the Philippines, 1937–1939, who facilitated the entry of Jewish refugees into the Philippines.[111]
  • Helmuth James Graf von Moltke – adviser to the Third Reich on international law; active in Kreisau Circle resistance group, sent Jews to safe haven countries.
  • Delia Murphy – wife of Dr. Thomas J. Kiernan, Irish minister in Rome 1941–1946, who worked with Hugh O'Flaherty and was part of the network that saved the lives of POWs and Jews in the hands of the Gestapo.[112]
  • Jean-Marie Musy toward end of the war negotiated with Himmler on behalf of Recha Sternbuch – to rescue large numbers of Jews in the concentration camps
  • Giovanni Palatucci – Italian police official who saved several thousand.
  • Giorgio Perlasca – Italian. When Ángel Sanz Briz was ordered to leave Hungary, he falsely claimed to be his substitute and saved some thousands more Jews.
  • Dimitar Peshev – Deputy Speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament, played a major role in rescuing Bulgaria's 48 000 Jews, the entire Jewish population in Bulgaria at the time.
  • Frits Philips – Dutch industrialist who saved 382 Jews by insisting to the Nazis that they were indispensable employees ofPhilips.
  • Witold Pilecki – the only person who volunteered to be imprisoned in Auschwitz, organised a resistance inside the camp and as a member of Armia Krajowa sent the first reports on the camp atrocities to the Polish Government in Exile, from where they were passed to the rest of the Western Allies.
  • Karl Plagge – a major in the Wehrmacht who issued work permits in order to save almost 1,000 Jews (see The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews, by Michael Good)
  • Enver Hoxha- Led the Resistance against the German and Italians in Albania, Hoxha refused that the Germans or collaborationists deport a single Jew, therefore Albania was the only country in Europe to have an increased Jewish population after the war.
  • Mehmet Shehu- a resistance fighter in Albania who allowed Jews to enter Albania, and Refused to hand the Jews over to The Germans, during the occupation
  • Eduardo Propper de Callejón – First Secretary in the Spanish embassy in Paris who stamped and signed passports almost non-stop for four days in 1940 to let Jewish refugees escape to Spain and Portugal.
  • Traian Popovici – Romanian mayor of Cernăuţi (Chernivtsi) who saved 20,000 Jews of Bukovina.
  • Manuel L. Quezon – President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, 1935–1941, assisted in resettling Jewish refugees on the island of Mindanao.[111]
  • Florencio Rivas – Consul General of Uruguay in Germany, who allegedly hid one hundred and fifty Jews duringKristallnacht and later provided them with passports.[113]
  • Gilberto Bosques Saldívar – General Consul of Mexico in Marseilles, France. For two years, he issued Mexican visas to around 40,000 Jews, Spaniards and political refugees, allowing them to escape to Mexico and other countries. He was imprisoned by the Nazis in 1943 and released to Mexico in 1944.[114]
  • Ángel Sanz Briz – Spanish consul in Hungary. Together with Giorgio Perlasca, he saved more than 5,000 Jews in Budapest by issuing Spanish passports to them.
  • Abdol-Hossein Sardari – Head of Consular affairs at the Iranian Embassy in Paris. He saved many Iranian Jews and gave 500 blank Iranian passports to an acquaintance of his to be used by non-Iranian Jews in France.[115]
  • Oskar Schindler – German businessman whose efforts to save his 1,200 Jewish workers were recounted in the bookSchindler's Ark and the film Schindler's List.
  • Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld set up a UK based rescue committee and rescued many thousands of Jews.
  • Eduard Schulte – German industrialist, the first to inform the Allies about the mass extermination of Jews.
  • Irena Sendler – Polish head of Zegota children's department who saved 2,500 Jewish children.
  • Ho Feng Shan – Chinese Consul in Vienna who freely issued visas to Jews.
  • Henryk Slawik – Polish diplomat who saved 5,000-10,000 people in Budapest, Hungary.
  • Aristides de Sousa Mendes – Portuguese diplomat in Bordeaux, who signed about 30,000 visas to help Jews and persecuted minorities to escape the Nazis and The Holocaust.
  • Recha Sternbuch rescued large numbers of Jews with the help of her husband Yitzchak by smuggling them into Switzerland from Austria, by distributing protection papers, by negotiating with Himmler with help of Jean-Marie Musy to save Jews in the concentration camps as the Germans were retreating and by rescuing the Jews who arrived to Bergen-Belsen by train from Hungary.
  • Chiune Sugihara – Japanese consul to Lithuania, 2,140 (mostly Polish) Jews and an unknown number of additional family members were saved by passports, many unauthorized, provided by him in 1940.
  • Hideki Tōjō – General and Prime Minister of Japan who received Jewish refugees in Manchuria and rejected German protest.[97]
  • Selâhattin Ülkümen – Turkish diplomat who saved the lives of some 42 Jewish Turkish families, more than 200 persons, among a Jewish community of some 2000 after the Germans occupied the island of Rhodes in 1944.
  • Raoul Wallenberg – Swedish diplomat. Wallenberg saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews condemned to certain death by the Nazis during World War II. He disappeared in January 1945 after being imprisoned by the Soviet troops who took control of Budapest.
  • Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl led the Bratislava Working Group, one of the most important rescue groups, in partnership with Gisi Fleischmann. They successfully negotiated with the Nazis in early 1942 to stop the transports from Slovakia and a few months later, via the Europa plan, to try to stop transports from other parts of Europe. They demanded bombing of the rail lines to Auschwitz and authored/distributed the famous Auschwitz Report in 1944 (also called the Wetzler-Vrba Report).
  • Sir Nicholas Winton – British stockbroker who organized the Czech Kindertransport which sent 669 children (most of them Jewish) to foster parents ln England and Sweden from Czechoslovakia and Austria after Kristallnacht. Sir Nicholas has been nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.[116][117]
  • Namik Kemal Yolga -A Vice-Consul at the Turkish Embassy in Paris who saved numerous Turkish Jews from deportation.
  • Guelfo Zamboni – Consul General at Thessaloniki who gave false papers to save the lives of over 300 Jews residing there.
  • Catholic officials[edit]

    • Pope Pius XII, preached against racism in encyclicals like Summi Pontificatus. Used Vatican Radio to denounced race murders and anti-Semitism.[82] Directly lobbied Axis officials to stop Jewish deportations.[93] Opened the sanctuaries of the Vatican to Rome's Jews during the Nazi roundup.[83]
    • Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty CBE – Irish Catholic priest who saved more than 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews;[118] known as the "Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican". Retold in the film The Scarlet and the Black.
    • Fillipo Bernardini, papal nuncio to Switzerland.[91]
    • Giuseppe Burzio, the Vatican Chargé d'Affaires in Slovakia.[91] Protested the anti-Semitism and totalitarianism of the Tiso regime.[92] Burzio advised Rome of the deteriorating situation for Jews in the Nazi puppet state, sparking Vatican protests on behalf of Jews.[119]
    • Angelo Roncalli, the nuncio to Turkey saved a number of Croatian, Bulgarian and Hungarian Jews by assisting their migration to Palestine. Roncalli succeeded Pius XII as Pope John XXIII, and always said that he had been acting on the orders of Pius XII in his actions to rescue Jews.[120]
    • Andrea Cassulo, papal nuncio in Romania.[121] Appealed directly to Marshall Antonescu to limit the deportations of Jews to Nazi concentration camps planned for the summer of 1942.[122]
    • Cardinal Gerlier of France refused to hand over Jewish children being sheltered in Catholic homes. In September 1942, Eight Jesuits were arrested for sheltering hundreds of children on Jesuit properties, and Pius XII's Secretary of State, Cardinal Maglione protested to the Vichy Ambassador.[123]
    • Giuseppe Marcone, apostolic visitor to Croatia, lobbied Croat regime, saved 1000 Jewish partners in mixed marriages.[124]
    • Archbishop Aloysius Stepinac of Zagreb, condemned Croat atrocities against both Serbs and Jews, and himself saved a group of Jews.[124] He declared publicly in the Spring of 1942 that it was "forbidden to exterminate Gypsies and Jews because they are said to belong to an inferior race".[90]
    • Bishop Pavel Gojdic protested the persecution of Slovak Jews. Gojdic was beatified by the Church and recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.[125]
    • Angelo Rotta, papal nuncio to Hungary. Actively protested Hungary's mistreatment of the Jews, and helped persuade Pope Pius XII to lobby the Hungarian leader Admiral Horthy to stop their deportation.[126] He issued protective passports for Jews and 15,000 safe conduct passes – the nunciature sheltered some 3000 Jews in safe houses.[126] An "International Ghetto" was established, including more than 40 safe houses marked by the Vatican and other national emblems. 25,000 Jews found refuge in these safe houses. Elsewhere in the city, Catholic institutions hid several thousand more Jewish people.[127]
    • Archbishop Johannes de Jong, later Cardinal, of Utrecht, Netherlands, who drew up together with Titus BrandsmaO.Carm. († Dachau, 1942) a letter in which he called for all Catholics to assist persecuted Jews, and in which he openly condemned the Nazi German "deportation of our Jewish fellow citizens" (From: Herderlijk Schrijven, read from all pulpitson Sunday 26 January 1942).
    • Archbishop Jules-Géraud Saliège of Toulouse – lead a number of French bishops (including Monseigneur Théas,Bishop of MontaubanMonseigneur DelayBishop of MarseillesCardinal GerlierArchbishop of LyonMonseigneur Vansteenberghe of Bayonne and Monseigneur MoussaronArchbishop of Albi – in denouncing roundups and mistreatment of Jews in France, spurring greater resistance.[128]
    • Père Marie-Benoît, Capuchin monk who saved many Jews in Marseille and later in Rome where he became known among the Jewish community as "father of the Jews".[66]
    • Mother Matylda Getter's Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary sheltered Jewish children escaping the Warsaw Ghetto.[129] Getter's convent rescued more than 750.[130]
    • Alfred Delp S.J., a Jesuit priest who helped Jews escape to Switzerland while rector of St. Georg Church in suburbanMunich; also involved with the Kreisau Circle. Executed February 2, 1945 in Berlin.
    • Rufino Niccacci, a Franciscan friar and priest who sheltered Jewish refugees in Assisi, Italy, from September 1943 through June 1944.
    • Maximilian Kolbe – Polish Conventual Franciscan friar. During the Second World War, in the friary, Kolbe provided shelter to people from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews. He was also active as a radio amateur, vilifying Nazi activities through his reports.
    • Bernhard Lichtenberg – German Catholic priest at Berlin's Cathedral. Sent to Dachau because he prayed for Jews at Evening Prayer.
    • Sára Salkaházi – a Hungarian Roman Catholic nun who sheltered approximately 100 Jews in Budapest.
    • Margit Slachta, of the Hungarian Social Service Sisterhood, went to Rome to encourage papal action against the Jewish persecutions.[131] In Hungary, she had sheltered the persecuted and protested forced labour and antisemitism.[131] In 1944 Pius appealed directly to the Hungarian government to halt the deportation of the Jews of Hungary. The Sisters of Social Service, nuns who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews; included Sister Sara Salkahazi, recognized by Yad Vashem as well as beatified.

      Others[edit]

      • Archbishop Damaskinos – Archbishop of Athens during the German occupation. He formally protested the deportation of Jews and quietly ordered churches under his jurisdiction to issue fake Christian baptismal certificates to Jews fleeing the Nazis. Thousands of Greek Jews in and around Athens were thus able to claim that they were Christian and were thus saved.
      • Archbishop Stefan of Sofia – Bishop of Sofia and Exarch of Bulgaria, actively supported Dimitar Peshev's pressure against the Bulgarian government to cancel the deportation of the 48,000 Bulgarian Jews.
      • Dietrich Bonhoeffer – a German Lutheran pastor who joined the Abwehr (a German military intelligence organization) which was also the center of the anti-Hitler resistance, and was involved in operations to help German Jews escape to Switzerland.
      • Metropolitan Bishop Chrysostomos of Zakynthos,[132] who, when ordered by the Axis occupying forces to submit a list of all Jews on the island, submitted a document bearing just two names: his own and the mayor's. Consequently, all 275 Zante Jews were saved.
      • Omelyan Kovch – Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest who was deported to Treblinka camp for helping thousands of Jews. He was canonized by Pope John Paul II[133]
      • Dimitar Peshev (25 June 1894 - 20 February 1973) was the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Bulgaria and Minister of Justice (1935-1936), before World War II. He rebelled against the pro-Nazi cabinet and prevented the deportation of Bulgaria's 48,000 Jews, and was bestowed the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".
      • Leopold "Poldek" Socha (August 28, 1909 – May 12, 1946) was a Polish sewage inspector in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine). During the Holocaust Socha used his knowledge of the city's sewage system to shelter a group of Jews from Nazi Germans and their supporters of different nationalities. In 1978 he was recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous Among the Nations.
      • Andrey Sheptytsky – Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, harbored hundreds of Jews in his residence and in Greek Catholic monasteries. He also issued the pastoral letter, "Thou Shalt Not Kill", to protest Nazi atrocities.
      • André and Magda Trocmé – A French Reformed pastor and his wife who led the Le Chambon-sur-Lignon village movement that saved 3,000-5,000 Jews.

The British Hero of the Holocaust award is a special national award given by Her Majesty's Government in recognition of British citizens who assisted in rescuing victims of the Holocaust. On 9 March 2010 it was awarded to 25 individualsposthumously, and to two living people, Sir Nicholas Winton aged 105, and Denis Avey (age 95–96). The award is a solid silver medallion, and bears the inscription "in the service of humanity" in recognition of "selfless actions" which "preserved life in the face of persecution".


Varian Mackey Fry (October 15, 1907 – September 13, 1967) was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France that helped approximately 2,000 to 4,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees to escape Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.

Footnotes[edit]

  1. Jump up^ 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."[55]
  2. Jump up^ 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.
  3. Jump up^ It was written partly in response to the Nuremberg Laws, and condemned racial theories and the mistreatment of people based on race.[72][73][74] Pius XI condemned the 1938 Kristallnacht, sparking mass demonstrations against Catholics and Jews in Munich, where the Bavarian Gauleiter Adolf Wagner declared: "Every utterance the Pope makes in Rome is an incitement of the Jews throughout the world to agitate against Germany".[75] The Vatican took steps to find refuge for Jews.[76] Pius XI rejected the Nazi claim of racial superiority, and insisted instead that there was only a single human race.[77]

Citations[edit]

  1. Jump up^ http://www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/statistics.html
  2. Jump up^ Norman Davies; Rising '44: the Battle for Warsaw; Viking; 2003; p.200
  3. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.88
  4. Jump up^ Norman Davies; Rising '44: the Battle for Warsaw; Vikiing; 2003; p594
  5. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.88 & 109
  6. Jump up^ "Statistics – The Righteous Among The Nations – Yad Vashem"yadvashem.org.
  7. Jump up^ "Yad Vashem – The Righteous Among Nations".holocaustforgotten.com.
  8. Jump up^ "List of Poles Killed Helping Jews During the Holocaust"holocaustforgotten.com.
  9. Jump up^ Norman Davies; Rising '44: the Battle for Warsaw; Vikiing; 2003; p.200
  10. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; pp.120-121
  11. Jump up^ Norman Davies; Rising '44: the Battle for Warsaw; Vikiing; 2003; p.566 & 568
  12. Jump up^ The Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture, p.2
  13. Jump up^ "Η Απίστευτη Ιστορία των Εβραίων της Ζακύνθου – Μνήμη Ολοκαυτώματος - ΙΣΡΑΗΛ: ΘΥΜΑ ΤΡΟΜΟΚΡΑΤΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΜΜΕ"ΙΣΡΑΗΛ: ΘΥΜΑ ΤΡΟΜΟΚΡΑΤΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΜΜΕ.
  14. Jump up^ Zakynthos: The Holocaust in GreeceUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum, URL accessed April 15, 2006.
  15. Jump up^ Glenny, p.508
  16. Jump up^ "State of Israel awards three Greeks who helped Jews during WWII – Community – ekathimerini.com".ekathimerini.com.
  17. Jump up^ Annette Herskovits, The mosque that saved Jews
  18. Jump up^ The Great Mosque of Paris that saved Jews during the Holocaust, Offer Aderet, HAARTZ
  19. Jump up^ Norman H Gershman, Stories of WWII, the missing pages
  20. Jump up^ "Muslims Who Helped Save French Jews"The Forward. 10 January 2012.
  21. Jump up^ Official portrait, Council of Europe Art Collection, Author:Ivan Minekov.
  22. Jump up^ Persecution of Jews in Bulgaria United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.
  23. Jump up^ http://people.virginia.edu/~mjl9g/history1.htm
  24. Jump up^ "The Holocaust in Macedonia: Deportation of Monastir Jewry"ushmm.org.
  25. Jump up^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  26. Jump up^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  27. Jump up^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  28. Jump up^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  29. Jump up^ The Official Web Site of KIS, the Central Jewish Council of Greece
  30. Jump up^ Dr Michael Bar-Zohar, Beyond Hitler's Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria's Jews. OCLC 716882036.
  31. Jump up^ Lochery, Neill - "Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939–45", PublicAffairs; 1 edition (November 1, 2011), ISBN 1-58648-879-1
  32. Jump up^ Leite, Joaquim da Costa. "Neutrality by Agreement: Portugal and the British Alliance in World War II." American University, Available online athttp://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1305&context=auilr
  33. Jump up to:a b Milgram, Avraham. "Portugal, Salazar, and the Jews", Publication Date: March 20, 2012 ISBN 978-9653083875
  34. Jump up^ "Spared Lives: The Actions of Three Portuguese Diplomats During World War II"The Newark Public Library. August 24, 2000. Retrieved 2009-07-28.
  35. Jump up^ Caught up in the exodus, two British volunteers in the French Ambulance Corps, Dennis Freeman and Douglas Cooper (art historian), captured the drama and agony of this civilian nightmare in “The Road to Bordeaux.”[49] London: Harper, 1941
  36. Jump up^ Milgram, Avraham. "Portugal, the Consuls, and the Jewish Refugees, 1938–1941". Source: Yad Vashem Studies, vol. XXVII, Jerusalem, 1999, pp. 123-56.
  37. Jump up^ Documents from Arquivo Digital Ministerio das Financas ACMF/Arquivo/DGCP/07/005/003
  38. Jump up^ http://badigital.sgmf.pt/Arquivo-DGCP--07---005---003/1/
  39. Jump up^ Several other sources also mention the monthly allowance that Sousa Mendes received until his death in 1954: A letter that Sousa Mendes wrote to the Portuguese Bar Association, Ordem dos Advogados – Secretaria do Conselho Geral, Lisboa, Cota – Processo nº 10/1931 Date 1946.04.29 where he says that he is receiving a monthly salary of 1,593 Portuguese Escudos. Other source: Wheeler, Douglas L., "And Who Is My Neighbor? A World War II Hero of Conscience for Portugal," Luso-Brazilian Review 26:1 (Summer, 1989): 119-39.
  40. Jump up^ Testimonial from Professor Baltasar Rebelo de Sousa in OLIVEIRA, Jaime da Costa. «Fotobiografia de Francisco de Paula Leite Pinto». No centenário do nascimento de Francisco de Paula Leite Pinto, Memória 2, Lisboa, Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa, 2003 –http://www.delfimsantos.com/textos/JCOliveira_fotobiografia%20de%20Francisco%20de%20Paula%20Leite%20Pinto_2003.pdf
  41. Jump up^ Testimonial from famous Portuguese historian, Jose Hermano Saraiva – Interview to “Sol” newspaper-http://sol.sapo.pt/inicio/Sociedade/Interior.aspx?content_id=54865
  42. Jump up^ «Salazar visto pelos seus próximos», Testemunho de Francisco de Paula Leite Pinto, Organização de Jaime Nogueira Pinto.ISBN 972-25-0567-X, 1993 Bertrand Editora S.A.
  43. Jump up^ David G. Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa (2000). Jews in the Japanese mind: the history and uses of a cultural stereotype. Lexington Books. p. 112. ISBN 0-7391-0167-6. The last diplomat to leave Kaunas, Sugihara continued stamping visas from the open window of his departing train.
  44. Jump up to:a b c (www.dw.com), Deutsche Welle. "Albanians saved Jews from deportation in WWII | Europe | DW.COM | 27.12.2012"DW.COM. Retrieved 2016-01-29.
  45. Jump up^ Elsie, Robert. A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology and Folk Culture. p. 141.
  46. Jump up to:a b Esposito, John L. (2004). The Islamic World: Abbasid-HistorianOxford: Oxford University Press. p. 21.ISBN 978-0-19-516520-3.
  47. Jump up^ Rabben, Linda. Give Refuge to the Stranger: The Past, Present, and Future of Sanctuary. p. 114.
  48. Jump up^ Gilbert, Martin. The Righteous. p. 302.
  49. Jump up^ Rozett, Robert. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. p. 104.
  50. Jump up^ Gilbert, Martin. The Righteous. p. 300.
  51. Jump up^ Mordecal, Paldiel. The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. p. 336.
  52. Jump up^ Gilbert, Martin. The Righteous. p. 523.
  53. Jump up^ "The Righteous Among The Nations".db.yadvashem.org. Retrieved 2016-01-30.
  54. Jump up^ "ADL COMMEMORATES HOLOCAUST DAY AT CITY HALL; HONORS ALBANIAN RESCUER AND RECOGNIZES JEWISH SURVIVOR"adl.org.
  55. Jump up^ "The Forward – News that Matters to American Jews".The Forward.
  56. Jump up^ Green, David B. (2 April 2013). "Jewish Albanians Gain a Foothold"Haaretz.
  57. Jump up^ Jussi Samuli Laitinen; Huijari vai pyhimys? Algoth Niskan osallisuus juutalaisten salakuljettamiseen Keski-Euroopassa vuoden 1938 aikana; Joensuun yliopisto; 2009
  58. Jump up^ http://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2012/05/23/rikostarinoita-historiasta-salakuljettajien-kuningas
  59. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.307-8
  60. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy; Collins; London; 1986; p.466
  61. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.308 & 311
  62. Jump up^ Martin GilbertThe Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.314
  63. Jump up^ "CatholicHerald.co.uk » Niece astonished as Cause of Sister Katherine advances"catholicherald.co.uk.
  64. Jump up^ Taylor, Jerome (2 June 2010). The Independent (London)http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-nuns-who-saved-wartime-jews-on-path-to-sainthood-1988875.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  65. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p323
  66. Jump up to:a b A litany of World War Two saintsJerusalem Post; 11 April 2008.
  67. Jump up^ "Father Arrigo Beccari and Dr. Giuseppe Moreali – The Righteous Among The Nations – Yad Vashem".yadvashem.org.
  68. Jump up^ "Don Gaetano Tantalo – The Righteous Among The Nations – Yad Vashem"yadvashem.org.
  69. Jump up^ "Italy. Historical Background – The Righteous Among The Nations – Yad Vashem"yadvashem.org.
  70. Jump up^ Paul O'Shea; A Cross Too Heavy; Rosenberg Publishing; p. 230 ISBN 978-1-877058-71-4
  71. Jump up^ Anton Gill; An Honourable Defeat; A History of the German Resistance to Hitler; Heinemann; London; 1994; p.58
  72. Jump up^ William L. Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich; Secker & Warburg; London; 1960; p234-5
  73. Jump up^ "Pius XII – Early life and career". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2013-11-06.
  74. Jump up^ Pius XI (1937-03-14). "Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge (14/03/1937)". Vatican.va. Retrieved 2013-08-18.
  75. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; Kristallnacht – Prelude to Disaster; HarperPress; 2006; p.143
  76. Jump up to:a b The Auschwitz Album
  77. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; Kristallnacht – Prelude to Disaster; HarperPress; 2006; p.172
  78. Jump up^ Encyclopedia Britannica : Reflections on the Holocaust
  79. Jump up^ Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus; 48; October 1939.
  80. Jump up^ Martin GilbertThe Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.308
  81. Jump up^ http://www.britannica.com/holocaust/article-236597
  82. Jump up to:a b Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.311
  83. Jump up to:a b Martin GilbertThe Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy; Collins; London; 1986; pp.622-623
  84. Jump up to:a b c Hitler's Pope?Martin Gilbert; The American Spectator; 18/8/06
  85. Jump up^ http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/18/world/pietro-palazzini-88-cardinal-honored-for-holocaust-rescue.html?pagewanted=1
  86. Jump up^ "CatholicHerald.co.uk » Ten Catholic heroes of the Holocaust"catholicherald.co.uk.
  87. Jump up^ "'Righteous Among the Nations'"New Oxford Review. 1944-04-07. Retrieved 2013-11-06.
  88. Jump up^ "How King Boris Kept Ahead Of Adolf Hitler". Catholic Herald Archive. Retrieved 2013-11-06.
  89. Jump up^ "The papers of Apostolic Visitor, Giuseppe Ramiro Marcone reveal the Holy See's commitment to helping Jews persecuted by Nazis"News.va. Retrieved 2013-11-06.
  90. Jump up to:a b Michael Phayer; The Catholic Church and the Holocaust: 1930–1965; Indiana University Press; 2000; p85
  91. Jump up to:a b c Michael Phayer; The Catholic Church and the Holocaust 1930–1965; Indiana University Press; 2000; p.83
  92. Jump up to:a b The Churches and the Deportation and Persecution of Jews in Slovakia; by Livia Rothkirchen; Vad Yashem.
  93. Jump up to:a b Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.335
  94. Jump up^ Martin GilbertThe Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.337
  95. Jump up^ Mary Gaffney. "Profile of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty". Terrace Talk. Retrieved 14 November 2008.
  96. Jump up^ David G. Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa (2000). Jews in the Japanese mind: the history and uses of a cultural stereotype. Lexington Books. p. 111. ISBN 0-7391-0167-6.
  97. Jump up to: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 0-7391-0167-6.
  98. Jump up^ "Refuge in Latin America"United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
  99. Jump up to:a b c Tainos Webdesign. "Sosúa-News".sosuanews.com.
  100. Jump up^https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/sosua.html
  101. Jump up^ "Sosúa Virtual Museum"sosuamuseum.org.
  102. Jump up^ Stefan Keller (2014-01-23). ""Akte Grüninger": Der Flüchtlingshelfer und die Rückkehr der Beamten" (in German). Die Wochenzeitung WOZ. Retrieved 2015-07-30.
  103. Jump up^ "The Policeman who Lifted the Border Barrier"Yad Vashem. Retrieved 2015-07-30.
  104. Jump up^ "Sugihara not the only Japanese to save Jewish lives".Asahi shimbun. 2010-05-04. Retrieved 2010-10-20.
  105. Jump up to: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 0-7391-0167-6.
  106. Jump up^ Johnson's aid to Leinsdorf is mentioned in Caro, Robert(1982). The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 481–482. ISBN 0-394-49973-5. His aid to Leinsdorf and to the other refugees is mentioned inWoods, Randall (2006). LBJ: Architect of American Ambition. Free Press. pp. 139–140. ISBN 0-684-83458-8.
  107. Jump up^ The Israeli Government's Official Website, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
  108. Jump up^ "The Righteous Among Us", Yad Vashem Magazine
  109. Jump up^ 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.
  110. Jump up^ El Salvador's Holocaust Hero
  111. Jump up to:a b "From Zbaszyn to Manila, by Bonnie Harris, 2005".ucsb.edu.
  112. Jump up^ Western People: Roundfort cabaret honours legendary Delia Murphy
  113. Jump up^ Diplomáticos que salvaron judíos durante el Holocausto | Especiales | Israel en Tiempo de Noticias. Judaismo y Pueblo Judio a diario. El Reloj.com
  114. Jump up^ "'Mexican Schindler' honored"latimes.
  115. Jump up^ Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Fariborz Mokhtari from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
  116. Jump up^ "Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source".haaretz.com.
  117. Jump up^ "Winton's Children – Index Page"just-powell.co.uk.
  118. Jump up^ Vatican's 'Scarlet Pimpernel' honoured; Majella O'Sullivan Irish Independent; 12 November 2012
  119. Jump up^ Phayer, The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965, p. 88
  120. Jump up^ Michael Phayer; The Catholic Church and the Holocaust: 1930–1965; Indiana University Press; 2000; p86
  121. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 0-385-60100-X; p. 206–207
  122. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 0-385-60100-X; p.207
  123. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy; Collins; London; 1986; p.451
  124. Jump up to:a b Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 0-385-60100-X; p.203
  125. Jump up^ "Bishop Pavel Gojdic – The Righteous Among The Nations – Yad Vashem"yadvashem.org.
  126. Jump up to:a b "Raoul Wallenberg – Diplomats"wallenberg.hu.
  127. Jump up^ Hitler's Pope?; by Sir Martin Gilbert, The American Spectator.
  128. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.230
  129. Jump up^ Martin Gilbert; The Righteous – The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Doubleday; 2002; ISBN 038560100X; p.114
  130. Jump up^ Michael Phayer; The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930–1965; Indiana University Press; p.117-
  131. Jump up to:a b "Wallenberg Emblekbizottsag". Wallenberg.hu. Retrieved 2013-08-18.
  132. Jump up^ The Holocaust in Greece
  133. Jump up^ uk:Ковч Омелян
  134. Jump up^ "First Arab Nominated for Holocaust Honor".Associated Press. 2007-01-30. Archived from the originalon 2007-08-31. Retrieved 2007-02-01.
  135. Jump up^ *Dietrich Bonhoeffer – a German Lutheran pastor who joined the Abwehr (a German military intelligence organization) which was also the center of the anti-Hitler resistance, was involved in operations to help German Jews escape to Switzerland. "Tisíc pět set zachráněných životů – Schindler nebyl sám" (in Czech). Denní Telegraf Praha. 1995-06-27. p. 5.
  136. Jump up^ ЯРУГА: СЕЛО-ПРАВЕДНИК. Борис ХАНДРОС | История | Человек
  137. Jump up^ (Polish) Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Wystawa „Sprawiedliwi wśród Narodów Świata”– 15 czerwca 2004 r., Rzeszów. „Polacy pomagali Żydom podczas wojny, choć groziła za to kara śmierci – o tym wie większość z nas.” (Exhibition "Righteous among the Nations." Rzeszów, June 15, 2004. Subtitled: "The Poles were helping Jews during the war – most of us already know that.") Last actualization November 8, 2008.
  138. Jump up^ (Polish) Jolanta Chodorska, ed., "Godni synowie naszej Ojczyzny: Świadectwa," Warsaw, Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek, 2002, Part Two, pp.161–62. ISBN 83-7257-103-1
  139. Jump up^ Kalmen Wawryk, To Sobibor and Back: An Eyewitness Account (Montreal: The Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies, and The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, 1999), pp.66–68, 71.
  140. Jump up^ Ryszard Walczak (1997). Those Who Helped: Polish Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. Warsaw: GKBZpNP–IPN. p. 51. ISBN 9788376290430. Retrieved17 April 2014.
  141. Jump up^ Szymon Datner (1968). Las sprawiedliwych. Karta z dziejów ratownictwa Żydów w okupowanej Polsce. Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza. p. 99.
  142. Jump up^ Peggy Curran, "Decent people: Polish couple honored for saving Jews from Nazis," Montreal Gazette, December 10, 1994; Janice Arnold, "Polish widow made Righteous Gentile," The Canadian Jewish News (Montreal edition), January 26, 1995; Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Żegota: The Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942–1945Montreal: Price-Patterson, 1999, pp.131–32.
  143. Jump up^ (Polish) "Odznaczenia dla Sprawiedliwych," Magazyn Internetowy Forum 26,09,2007.
  144. Jump up^ Milgram, Avraham. "Portugal, Salazar, and the Jews", Publication Date: March 20, 2012 ISBN 978-9653083875 pp 116
  145. Jump up^ Ben-Zwi Kalischer – On The Way to the Land of Israel tr. from the German by Shalom Kramer (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1945) pp 174-182
  146. Jump up^ Portugal-Europe's Crossroads –http://www.ushmm.org/online/film/display/detail.php?file_num=1103
  147. Jump up^ "Jewish Labor and the Holocaust"nyu.edu.

External links[edit]

Further reading[edit]