The Righteous Few: The
Rescuers
The Righteous Among Nations
• When governments would not act, brave
individuals stepped forward
The Righteous Among Nations
• Benedictine nuns near Vilna provided
weapons to people in the ghetto
• There are many stories of people who
helped a few people
Hiding Jews
• Was not easy as rumors spread and
neighbors were suspicious
• Nazis constantly raiding homes and
warehouses
• Was risky for the person helping the Jew
• Hiding places were very cramped
The Catholic Church and Jews
• Some individual priests and nuns rescued Jews
• Pope was silent through most of the war
– Sign of anti-Semitism?
– Afraid Catholics of Europe would face final solution?
• July 1944, Pope joins King of Sweden and
International Red Cross to ask Hungarians to stop
transporting Jews to camps
Raoul Wallenberg
• Swedish diplomat sent
to Budapest, Hungary
• Created false
documents and saved
thousands of Jews.
• Was arrested by the
Russians and never
seen again.
Schultzpass
• Wallenberg issued this
schultzpass (letter of
protection)
• Prevented Jews from
being deported to
almost certain death
Joop Westerville
• High School principal
who took Jewish
children on the
underground railroad
between Holland and
Switzerland
• Was captured and shot
Miep Gies
• Secretary in Amsterdam who for two years
gave food and information to her Jewish
boss and his family and another family were
forced into hiding.
• Found her boss’s diary in the attic
• Diary of Anne Frank
Janusz Korzcak
• Was a Dr. in Warsaw, Poland who ran an
orphanage
• When the German’s gave the order for the
children to be deported to Treblinka, he
refused to leave them.
Le Chambon sur-Lignon
• Small town that became a haven for Jews
during the Holocaust
• Jews hidden by villagers and peasants in the
countryside
Rescue in Denmark
• Germany occupies
Denmark in 1940
• King Christian X of
Denmark says “We have
no Jewish problem in our
country.”
• 1943, Nazis decide to
round up Jews and send
them to death camps
Rescue in Denmark
•Danes help them
escape to Sweden
•At the end of the war,
they were welcomed
back to Denmark
Garden of the Righteous
A Bitter Truth
• The hard fact is that taken altogether, the
rescue efforts of nations, of clergy, or
individuals, saved only a few thousand
Jewish lives.
• The Nazis managed to take six million.