Rescuers are those who, at great personal risk, actively helped members of persecuted groups, primarily Jews, during the Holocaust in defiance of Third Reich policy. They were ordinary people who became extraordinary people because they acted in accordance with their own belief systems while living in an immoral society. Thousands survived the Holocaust because of the daring of these rescuers. Although in total their number is statistically small, rescuers were all colossal people.
Profile of rescuers
Rescuers were peasants and nannies, aristocrats and clergy, bakers and doctors, social workers and storekeepers, school children and police officers, diplomats and grandmothers. They were from many countries--the Netherlands, the Ukraine, Poland, Germany, France, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Belgium and other nations. Rescuers viewed Jews and other victims not as the enemy, but as human beings. Generally, rescuers were able to accept people who were different than themselves. They also held the conviction that what one person did could make a difference.
Each rescue story is different. Yet, what rescuers had in common was a combination of awareness, resourcefulness, empathy, vigilance, inventiveness, courage, compassion, and persistence. First, a rescuer had to recognize that a person was endangered, something that was not always clear because of the propaganda and the secrecy of the Nazis. Many rescuers today recount that witnessing one horrifying incident between Nazis and their victims propelled them into becoming rescuers. Next, rescuers had to decide whether or not to assume the responsibility of helping and risk the potential consequences. Public hangings, deportation to concentration camps, and on-the-spot shootings were very real consequences of helping enemies of the Third Reich. After the rescuers found ways to help, they took action. Sometimes the entire transformation from bystander to rescuer took just seconds.
People rescued others for various reasons. Some were motivated by a sense of morality. Others had a relationship with a particular person or group. Some were politically driven and were adamantly opposed to the Third Reich. Other rescuers were involved at work, as diplomats, nurses, social workers, and doctors, and continued their involvement beyond their professional obligation. Many children followed in their parents' footsteps and became rescuers.
The scope of the rescuing activities varied, from leaving food regularly by a ghetto fence, to hiding someone within one's house for several years, to creating a bureaucracy which allowed thousands of Jews to emigrate.
Rescuers possessed an inner core of unshakable values and beliefs. Social psychologist Dr. Eva Fogelman describes Hitler's twelve-year reign in Conscience and Courage:
It was a reign which, nearly half a century later, still challenges our understanding. Evil was rewarded and good acts were punished. Bullies were aggrandized and the meek trampled. In this mad world, most people lost their bearings. Fear disoriented them, and self-protection blinded them. A few, however, did not lose their way. A few took their direction from their own moral compass.
To Save One Life: The Story of Righteous Gentilesis a 20-page children's book in PDF from the Holocaust Resource Center and Archives at Queensborough Community College. Requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader plug-in.
Elisabeth Abegg was a German Quaker who saved Jews in Berlin during World War II.
Joseph Andre was a Belgian abbot who helped rescue hundreds of Jewish children and encouraged them to remain in the Jewish faith.
Gitta Bauer tells how she sheltered a half-Jewish woman for nine months.
Germaine Belline and Liliane Gaffney explain how they hid 30 Jews in Belgium.
Ivan Beltrami was able to use his position as an intern to protect Jews in a hospital infirmary.
Esther Bem relates how she
and her family were hidden in an Italian village.
Marie Benoit was a French Capuchin monk who arranged for the rescue of thousands of Jews.
Bert Bochove
describes at length how he and his wife Annie saved the lives of many Jews in
Holland during the war.
Anna and Jaruslav Chlup cared for Herman Feder, a Jewish man who escaped from a train on its way to a death camp.
John Damski barely escaped execution while a Polish political prisoner. Upon release he helped many Jews in Poland to escape the ghetto, obtain false documents, and find work. He helped a Jewish neighbor's family and ended up marrying the daughter.
Jean Deffaugt, mayor of a French town on the Swiss border, aided Jews caught crossing the border.
Marc Donadille was a Protestant minister who rescued about 80 Jewish children in France.
Libuse Fries rescued her future husband and his sister in Prague.
Marie-Rose Gineste harbored Jews in Montauben, France.
Alexandre Glasberg was a French priest rescued Jews and then joined the Partisans.
Hermann Friedrich Grabe used his position as a foreman to employ and protect many Jews.
Paul Gruninger was a Swiss official who disobeyed his government by allowing some thirty-six hundred Jews to cross illegally into Switzerland.
Emilie Guth and Ermine Orsi were French Protestants who hid Jews in the Le Chambon area of France.
Adelaide Hautval was a French physician who defied the Nazis and assisted those in need at Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Esta Heiber tells how she was able to rescue 20 Jewish children in Belgium.
Andree Guelen Herscovici was a teacher who began rescue work when she noticed her Jewish students were disappearing.
Father Jacques de Jésus was a Carmelite friar and headmaster of the Petit Collège Sainte-Thérèse de l ' Enfant-Jésus. His attempt to rescue four Jewish boys is remembered in the film Au Revoir les Enfants.
Father Jacques' stay in Mauthausen and Gusen camps is remembered at this site.
Antonin Kalina, a Communist political prisoner, was able to protect 1,300 children in Buchenwald.
Helen L. tells how an older Russian soldier's compassion helped save her life.
Janis Lipke was a Latvian who saved many Jews from the Riga ghetto.
This richly detailed account by Barbara Szymanska Makuch chronicles her aid to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Nazis imprisoned her for her work in the underground.
Laura Margolis' relief efforts among the Jewish refugees in the Shanghai ghetto saved many lives.
Mihael Michaelov explains how he helped Jews in Bulgaria during the Holocaust.
Dorothea Neff was a famous Austrian stage actress who hid her Jewish dress designer in the back room of her apartment.
Yvonne Neyejean was the head of a Belgian agency responsible for the rescue of as many as 4,000 Jewish children.
Ellen Nielsen's story tells us about how she helped Jews escape by boat to Sweden.
Marion P. a Dutch rescuer,
hid a number of Dutch Jews. (Photo, video, audio, and text)
Mirjam Pinkhof worked with Joop Westerweel in Holland, finding refuge for German children who had been sent there by their parents for safety after Kristallnacht. A Jewish woman herself, she passed up opportunities to escape Holland, choosing to stay and establish underground routes to smuggle children to safer areas.
An Oskar Schindler bibliography is available at the Wiesenthal Center site.
Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese consul general in Bordeaux, disobeyed his government's orders and issued thousands of special transit visas allowing refugees to cross Spain into Portugal.
Marie Taquet hid the Jewish identity of 80 boys at a school for children of the Belgian military.
This extended interview
with Tina Strobos tells the story of an active member of the Dutch underground.
During the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, she helped many Jews find shelter
and food and obtain false documents.
Pastor Andre Trocme lead an effort in the French Protestant village of Le Chambon to save some 3,000-5,000 Jews.
Visit the Le Chambon memorial at Yad Vashem.
Visit the Wiesenthal Center site for an extensive bibliography related to Raoul Wallenberg.
This is the story of how Jan Zwartendijk, the acting Dutch consul in Kovno, stamped passports of Lithuanian Jews allowing them to emigrate to Japan.
Five excerpts from Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaustby Gay Block and Malka Drucker appear on this site.
Five rescue accounts from The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaustby Mordecai Paldiel are available here.
The Holocaust Heroes Website is an ongoing effort to document the rescue of Jews by church groups.
Varian Fry was an American who went to France on behalf of the Emergency Rescue Committee with the mission of rescuing artists, writers, academics, and others at risk.
Lesson plans, discussion questions, term paper topics, reproducible handouts, and other resources for teaching about rescuers are available here.
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College of Education, University of South Florida © 2000.