The Rescuers

Minimum estimate: 100,000 rescuers saved 250,000 Jewish lives

As of 1996, 11,000 rescuers had been recognized by Yad Vashem

Why do you think this is only around 10%?

A rescuer is someone who endangered himself to save a Jewish life during WWII without expectation of reward (monetary or that the Jew would convert)

Let’s look at this as a clue to my previous question. What do you think might keep some rescuers out of this honor? -- I think there are some gray areas here. What if it was in the best interest of a hidden child to have his or her name changed to a Christian name? What if, for cover, they had to be baptized? -- I suppose in some ways it would depend on what happened after the war. What kind of life would the person who was hidden be returned to? -- But what if their whole family had been killed in the Holocaust? What if there was no one they knew who was Jewish who could care for them? -- We’re getting into the intent of the rescuer, which I think is good. Can you appreciate now why there are only 10% of the rescuers represented? This should be treated as a profound honor to have this recognition. And understand that some of the rescuers will never be identified.

Factors associated with rescue:

Rescuers came from all socioeconomic classes

Friends of Jews didn’t always rescue

Political or religious persuasion didn’t seem to matter

Gender didn’t seem to matter

Rescuers were masochists?? – too Freudian

Age didn’t seem to matter; there were child rescuers

Rescuers were not marginalists –many were fully-involved in society

Rescuers were: artisans, peasants, doctors, shopkeepers, factory workers, maids, teachers, grocers, businessmen, Germans, Poles, church leaders, etc.

I think we can just sum that up by saying anyone could rescue. It comes from within, not without.

Motivations of rescuers:

Helped because of pre-War Jewish relationships

Part of resistance networks

Patriotism; anti-Nazi feelings

Sometimes overrode feelings of antisemitism

Some people were able to understand that if the Jews are now, I could be later…

Deeply-held religious beliefs

Mother Maria of Paris made her convent a headquarters for the rescue of Jewish children

Caught and transferred to Ravensbruck on 4-23-43

Continued to minister to 2500 women in her cell block

3-31-45: last day seen alive; on her last day she gave a Jewish woman her Aryan card

Deeply-held moral values

Alex Rozlan: resident of Warsaw who saw children in the ghetto

Took in 3 Jewish brothers at great risk

Never considered themselves heroes; duty-bound – they had to do it!

Explanations of rescue:

Mordecai Paldiel: head of Yad Vashem’s rescue project

Altruism is a human archetype, the origin of which we do not know

Anyone is capable

Diplomatic rescuers:

Aristedes de Sousa Mendes, Portuguese diplomat born 1885

Married 1910, had 14 children

Concerned, compassionate; intelligent, efficient, hard-working

1938: Portuguese Consul General of Bordeaux

Spring, 1940: Nazi attack on France

City of Bordeaux swelled

Took pity on the family of an Orthodox rabbi from Brussels and invited them into the consulate; learned of Nazi actions

Strict instructions for no issuance of Portuguese visas, particularly to Jews

Sousa Mendes could face censure, or worse

Sousa Mendes claimed he was swayed by a divine voice to issue refugee visas

“I can only act as a Christian, as my conscience tells me...”

June 17, 1940: Mendes, his eldest 2 sons, and the consulate staff began issuing visas

Visas requested Spain to allow safe passage to Portugal

Thousands of passports were signed as word spread

June 17-19 (Portugal ordered him to stop and return to Portugal): thousands of visas had been issued in 3 days

On way through southern France, Sousa Mendes stopped at another Portuguese consulate in Bayonne and ordered that consul to issue thousands more visas against the government’s will

Rescued one more family of refugees at Spanish border

When he reached Lisbon, he was fired and stripped of pension rights, diplomatic rights

Retired to country home

Blacklisted from practicing law

Had to sell his possessions to survive

Children had to leave Portugal to find work

Wife died in 1948 of a stroke

Sousa Mendes had two strokes

Lived in a basement apt. in Lisbon

Died in 1954 in a hospital for the poor

“If so many Jews could suffer for one person, then one Christian can suffer for many Jews. My desire is to be with God against man, rather than with man against God.”

1966: tree planted for him at Yad Vashem

1974: Portugal became a democracy

1987: posthumously awarded a medal and diplomatic rights/pension were restored

1995: Portugal awarded Sousa Mendes its highest honor

Wiesel: Moments come when one must make a moral choice whether to follow the dictates of conscience or whether to follow the convention of self-interest or the passions of fear or greed.