Most of us know about the work of Oskar Schindler thanks to the film "Schindler's List" . Less well known are the Righteous Among the Nations. These are non-Jews recognized by Israel as those who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save the Jewish people from the Nazis. Like Schindler, they worked at great personal risk to help men, women, and children escape Nazi-occupied territories to freedom. Some saved a few, some saved thousands, but all are remembered for their bravery and compassion.
10. Morris Sachs took 79 Jewish orphans to Canada.
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada, was far from any fighting during World War II. But it was where Morris Sachs, a Jewish dairy farmer, called home. He came to Canada in 1902 and, by all accounts, was a hard worker. When he learned of what was happening to Jews in Europe in the lead-up to the war, he wanted to help, but a farmer in Canada had few options. So he turned to the Canadian government—asking them to send 79 Jewish orphans from Poland who had lost their parents in World War I to Canada, on the condition that he teach them how to farm.
The Canadian government allowed this to happen, and Sachs opened a farm school in 1928, a few years before the official start of World War II. The school lasted only two years, apparently due to poor funding and trust issues with its main sponsor, but by then 79 visas had been issued.
9. Mary Elms carried hundreds of children in her trunk.
Mary Elmes was an Irish Quaker who worked in the London Ambulance Service and then in a children's hospital during the Spanish Civil War. When France was occupied during World War II, Elmes worked with other Quakers to help save Jewish children as Jews were being arrested by the French police.
She took children under 16, with their parents' permission, from the Riversalts concentration camp and sent them to the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain. She hid them in the trunk of her car.
By 1942, 2,289 Jews had been taken from Riversalt to the Drancy internment camp, from where they were eventually transported to the death camps. It is said that 84% children escaped deportation, largely due to Mary Elmes. There is no official count of the numbers, but it is estimated to be in the hundreds.
8. Abdol Hossein Sardari saved thousands of people
Iran declared itself neutral as soon as World War II began, and so did not participate in the fighting on either side. But that does not mean Iran did not participate at all. Abdol Hossein Sardari was Iran’s consul general and the only diplomat in Paris after the Iranian ambassador left the city in 1940.
At the time, Iran had been declared an Aryan nation by Germany due to the active trade between the two countries. This gave Sardari an opening when he fought to have Iranian and other Middle Eastern Jews declared ethnically the same as any other Persian, rather than technically Jewish. He argued that these Jews, called Yuguti, might still practice Judaism, but they were not biologically Jewish and were therefore exempt from any attempts to restrict their movements or imprison and harm them.
In this way, it is believed that Sardari may have saved up to 2,000 Iranian Jews and others in the region by appealing to Nazi officials, using their own language and ideals against them, and convincing them that those he was trying to save were not actually Nazis they were against in the first place.
7. Ho Feng Shan handed out thousands of Chinese visas to Jews in Vienna
We generally think of World War II as a war between several superpowers and then smaller countries that were allied with one side or the other in a smaller or supporting capacity. One country that is often overlooked in the history of the war is China, which was an ally of American and British forces primarily against Japan. They officially joined the alliance in December 1941.
Dr. Ho Feng Shan was a Chinese diplomat stationed in Vienna during the war. From 1938 to 1940, Ho issued Chinese visas to Jews attempting to escape Austria in numbers we may never know. He may have helped tens of thousands of Jews escape, but many of the records have long been lost, making it impossible to keep a proper record. At least one visa issued had a number higher than 4,000, so it is safe to say that at least that many were saved by his efforts.
Ho is considered to have been one of the first diplomats in the world to help Jews at a time when many others were still on the edge, not wanting to start any potential trouble with the Nazi regime. Ho issued visas to anyone who wanted one, regardless of whether they even wanted to go to China. He made no pretense of doing anything other than saving as many people as possible. All of this was done against the wishes of his superiors, who did not want visas issued.
Ho never told anyone what he had been doing all his life. He died at the age of 96 in 1997. Even his wife and children did not know.
6. Chiune Sugihara defied orders to issue Japanese visas to Jews
Despite their military participation in World War II, not everyone in Japan agreed with their country's position. One such person was Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania during the war. As people fled Germany and other occupied territories, Lithuania was one of the countries that saw a massive influx of refugees.
Sugihara began issuing visas to Jews that allowed them to stop in Japan on their way to somewhere else, such as Curacao. Others wanted to go to the United States, Canada, or Australia. The fact that they didn’t actually have a visa didn’t matter, of course. The goal was simply to get them out of harm’s way by escaping to safer places. The end result was that in six weeks, Sugihara had issued an astonishing 2,139 handwritten visas, potentially saving more than 6,000 Jews. All the while, his superiors in Japan were pressuring him to stop, as refugees continued to show up with no money and no real destination plan.
5. Aristides de Sousa Mendes issued thousands of visas
Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes was in France during World War II. Portugal was officially neutral during the war, but dictator António de Oliveira Salazar banned Jews from entering the country and offered no assistance. Fortunately, Sousa Mendes did not feel the same way.
Disobeying the rules set by his superiors, Sousa Mendes began issuing passports to Jews in France. He was in Bordeaux from 1939 to 1940, and what he did did not go unnoticed. But it was the drive to do so that made the difference. He worked tirelessly, issuing literally thousands of passports in a relatively short time, and managed to distribute a staggering 30,000 of them. The refugees were able to flee France to Lisbon, Portugal, before dispersing around the world. Many traveled to the United States, as Portugal’s neutral status made travel much easier.
4. Angel Sanz Briz issued thousands of fake Spanish passports
Diplomat Angel Sanz Briz played a major role in saving the lives of at least 5,000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust. He forged fake passports, claiming they were Spanish citizens. He got permission from the Hungarian government, where he was stationed, to issue passports to just 200 Jews of Spanish descent. He secretly turned that into 200 families. Then from there, he just kept increasing the number as long as he could.
Breeze was able to pull off his scam by invoking a 1924 law that granted citizenship to Cam-Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492. It was a farce, of course, but it saved lives.
3. Gertrude Weissmuller-Meyer saved 10,000 Jewish children
Gertrude Wijsmuller-Meyer, sometimes called Aunt Truus, was a Dutch banker who seems to have been motivated to take up social work after World War I. Although she had no children of her own, she worked tirelessly to help Jewish orphans and refugees, resettling them in the Netherlands and Britain. She and those who helped her are said to have done everything from bribing railway workers to charming Nazis when necessary. At one point, she even personally met Adolf Eichmann, one of the main architects of the Holocaust, and convinced him to let her take 600 Jewish orphans to the Netherlands.
Wijsmuller organized the Kindertransport, transporting children from any Nazi-occupied territory, from Germany to Austria and France, and delivering them safely to Allied territory. Even as borders closed and her ability to transport them diminished, she still brought food and supplies when she could. Her efforts saved 10,000 children.
2. Constantine Karadzha saved tens of thousands
Constantin Karadja was a Romanian diplomat during the war, when his country was allied with the Germans. He saw first-hand how the Nazis treated Jews, including Jews of Romanian descent, and he repeatedly asked officials in Bucharest to do something to help his people. Unfortunately, there were also strong threads of anti-Semitism in Romania at the time, and Karadja’s requests often fell on deaf ears.
When Romania decided to include the designation “Jewish” on Romanian passports, he successfully opposed the change, arguing that it would do nothing but make the people worse off. And while his protests may have had some effect, it was his continued issuance of travel documents that had the greatest impact, and resulted in some 51,000 people being saved from deportation and the Nazi death camps.
1. Karl Lutz of Switzerland is credited with saving 62,000 Jews.
It is astonishing that Swiss Carl Lutz is no more famous than he is. Lutz may have single-handedly saved more lives during the Holocaust than any other person, and while it is by no means a competition, his story should be known to more people.
While in Hungary as a diplomat, Lutz is credited with leading the largest diplomatic rescue operation of the war. Hungary began deporting Jews to Germany in 1944, and when Lutz’s protests failed to produce any change, he took matters into his own hands. He began by issuing letters of protection, placing Jews in Hungary under Swiss protection.
Now here's the thing about Lutz's letters. They were all numbered from 1 to 7800 or 8000 (sources differ on this). They were supposed to be issued one per person. Lutz didn't issue them to individuals, but to families. And when he ran out, he started again at one. He hoped the Nazis wouldn't analyze it enough to realize he was reissuing numbers.
After this move, Lutz rented 76 buildings that would become Swiss diplomatic facilities, all built to house more Jews under Swiss protection, where they would receive food, shelter, and medical care. He and his wife literally walked with Jews on death marches, pulling them out of line and showing Nazi officials papers declaring them under Swiss protection.
Historians believe, partly due to his ploy with protective letters, that Lutz may have saved as many as 62,000 Jews.
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