Heroes of the Holocaust and Their Stories of Courage

The Holocaust specifically targeted the Jews in what the Nazi termed as the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” Other victims of the Nazi regime included gypsies, religious groups, the mentally and physically disabled; homosexuals; prisoners of war; intelligentsia and political activists; and races that were deemed inferior. Considering all the victims of Nazi persecution, the total number of casualties is estimated to be between nine and eleven million including six million Jews and two million Gentile Poles, absolutely making World War II the costliest war in terms of human lives.

As follows are but some extraordinary men and women, who, at great personal risks, have done all they could to save lives. Most of their deeds may have gone unnoticed during their lifetimes but many have been honored by Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial with the title “Righteous among the Nations” or “Righteous Gentiles” recognizing those non-Jews who helped save Jews from the Holocaust.

Raoul Wallenberg (1912 – 1947?)

Swedish Diplomat

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Immediately following his arrival as First Secretary to the Swedish embassy in Budapest in July 1944, Wallenberg used his diplomatic status to issue “protective passports” to thousands of Jews, identifying them as Swedish citizens, thereby preventing their deportation to death camps. He would often personally intervene to obtain the release of these passport bearers, including those with forged documents, from the Jews who were forced to march toward the Austrian-Hungarian border for deportation, saving as many lives as possible. He even rented more than 30 buildings to house about 10,000 Jewish refugees, putting up fake signs as “The Swedish Research Institute” and hanging the Swedish flag to avoid detection. All in all, this soft-spoken Swede is credited to have rescued more Jews than any single rescuer or country, around 100,000 of them; but he was unable to save his own. In January 1945, he was taken by the Soviet Red Army troops to a Soviet prison, where he was reported to have died in 1947, although the exact circumstances of his death are still very much in dispute.

Irena Sendler (1910 – 2008)

Polish Catholic Social Worker

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People and their households caught hiding Jews risked death sentences in German-occupied Poland. As a Jewish sympathizer since childhood, Sendler (Sendlerowa) and her friends produced thousands of false documents to help Jewish families prior to joining the resistance group Zegota (Council for Aid to Jews). Upon her appointment as head of Zegota’s newly formed children’s department, she organized the smuggling of some 2,500 children out of Warsaw ghetto and had them placed in Polish families, orphanages and convents. She gave each child a new identity and carefully recorded their names and placements so that they could be returned to surviving relatives after the war. Her work was interrupted when she was arrested, tortured and sentenced to death by the Gestapo in 1943. However, she was successfully rescued by Zegota before her scheduled execution. She then went into hiding and resumed her work for Jewish children for the remainder of the war. In 2003, she received Poland’s highest civilian decoration, the Order of the White Eagle.