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Aristides de Sousa Mendes (1885 – 1954)

Portuguese Diplomat

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Sousa Mendes was was the Consul General in Bordeaux when France fell into the Nazi hands in 1940. Though the fascist dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, whose personal belief highly favored Hitler, was able to preserve Portugal’s neutrality during the war, he issued orders to all consuls not to grant visas to foreigners of questionable nationality or to Jews expelled from their countries. Following a few days crisis of conscience, he began issuing visas, an estimated total of about 30,000 of them, to help Jews and other persecuted minorities escape the Nazi terror. For his willful disobedience, he was dishonorably forced to quit his post. He found himself unable to continue his law career; and abandoned by his friends and colleagues. Deprived of his pension, he died in poverty in Lisbon in 1954, still in disgrace with his government. Sousa Mendes’ posthumous honors include being listed as one of the “Righteous among the Nations” by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in 1966; and the Order of Liberty, one of Portugal’s highest honors, in 1987.

“My desire is to be with God against men, rather than with men against God.” – Sousa Mendes

“I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.” – Sousa Mendes

Albert Göring (1895 – 1966)

German Businessman

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Albert Göring was nothing like his elder brother, Hermann, who was a top Nazi party member. He despised the Nazi philosophy and the brutality it entailed. He would sometimes go out of his way to help Jews with the work that was forced upon them, such as scrubbing the street, but the SS official in charge would order every activity stopped upon learning of his identity, not willing that Hermann’s brother be humiliated in public. On numerous occasions, he would forge his brother’s signature on transit papers or send trucks to concentrations camps with labor requests, enabling many Jews and dissidents to escape. After the war, he was questioned at the Nuremberg Tribunal, where his brother was eventually convicted. He was subsequently released when many of those he had rescued testified on his behalf. Upon his return to Germany, he found himself rejected because of his family name. He passed away in 1966 with his heroic deeds still unacknowledged to this very day.

Necdet Kent (1911 – 2002)

Turkish Diplomat

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Kent was appointed to the post of Consul-General to Marseille from 1941 to 1944. There was one occasion when he himself intervened to save around 80 Jews who were forced to board into cattle trains for transport to Nazi camps. Much overwhelmed with anger by the sight; he boldly approached the German guards and demanded that they, whom he claimed were Turkish citizens, be released. At enormous risk to himself, he jumped onto the train when the guards refused to comply; a German officer ordered him to get off upon reaching the next station, but he was unyielding until the guards finally gave in to his request. As the other consulates in Marseille were beginning to imitate the Nazi attitude toward the Jews, Kent issued identity papers freely to Turkish Jews and other refugees; he also personally protested at the Gestapo headquarters of their detestable act of stripping males in the middle of the street to ascertain whether they are Jews or not, admonishing them that circumscision did not necessarily confirm one’s Jewishness. In 2001, Kent was honored with Turkey’s Supreme Service Medal as well as a special recognition from the Israeli state for saving Jews during the Holocaust.

Paul Grüninger (1891 – 1972)

Swiss Police Official

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Following the 1938 Austrian Anschluss, the government of Switzerland gave orders not to allow any refugees enter its borders. As a commander in the Canton of St. Gallen, Grüninger provided falsely dated travel documents in violation to these orders, thereby allowing some 3,600 Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis in Austria to enter Switzerland. However, when his activities were discovered, he was dismissed in disgrace, convicted of fraud and sentenced to prison. Unable to find work as an ex-convict and denied of his pension rights, he died in poverty in 1972 with his heroic efforts unrecognized. In 1995, he was absolved by the district court of St. Gallen; and was also honored by Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial as one of the “Righteous among the Nations.”

Sára Salkaházi (1899 – 1944)

Hungarian Catholic Sister

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In 1930, Salkaházi, who belonged to an upper class family of German descent, made her religious vows to the Sisters of Social Service, where she had hoped to be sent on missions to Brazil, a hope that never came true due to the outbreak of World War II. During the final months of the war, she protected around 100 Jews in a house belonging to the Sisters of her order in Budapest, with the vow to sacrifice her own life in order to prevent any harm from happening to the other sisters. However, the Jews she had sheltered were betrayed by a woman employed at the sisters’ house to a Hungarian pro-Nazi party. She was not present when the arrest occurred and could have escaped, yet she opted to return. They were brought to the bank of the Danube River, where they were all shot to death. Her heroic deeds for the Hungarian Jews were acknowledged by Yad Vashem in 1972 upon the recommendation of a daughter of one of the Jews who were executed along with her.

Corrie ten Boom (1892 – 1983)

Dutch reformed Christian Preacher

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The Ten Boom family was known for their many charitable works and gracious character toward everyone, especially the mentally and physically handicapped. When the Nazi occupied Netherlands in 1940, Corrie and her family became active in the Dutch underground resistance, helping all refugees (including many Jews and those hunted by the Gestapo) arriving at their doorsteps without any hesitation, allowing them to stay in their place that became known as “de schuilplaats” (Dutch for “the hiding place”). In February 1944, Corrie and her entire family were betrayed to the authorities. They were sent first to Scheveningen prison, where her father died a few days later; and then to the infamous Ravensbrück concentration camp, where her sister Betsie died. Corrie was released on Christmas day of 1944; but it was later learned that her freedom was actually due to clerical error, as all female captives her age in the camp were executed the week after. After the war, she traveled the world as a preacher of the Gospel, emphasizing on God’s forgiveness and love. This remarkable lady even forgave one of the cruelest former camp guards who came up to her during one of her sermons in Germany, an event she recounted in her book “Tramp for the Lord.” Ten Boom was honored as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Yad Vashem in 1967.

“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.” – “Tramp for the Lord” by Corrie ten Boom

Prince Constantin Karadja (1889 – 1950)

Romanian Diplomat and Barrister

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(Prince Constantin Karadja in 1916)

Karadja was the Romanian Consul-General in Berlin (1931 – 1941) and the director of the consular department in the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1941 – 1944). Profoundly influenced by humanistic education he received in England, he adhered to the principles of international law concerning human rights. As a person of strong resolve, he never gave in to political pressures but exerted great pains at diplomatic level to protect the rights of Romanian citizens in various parts of Europe, irregardless of religion or ethnicity. Once, he received orders to stamp the word “Jew” onto the passports of Romanian Jews, he responded in protest that such act will worsen their conditions in Germany, somehow placing needless obstacles to their return to Romania. For his decisive actions in favor of Jews of Romanian citizenship that also benefited many others from Hungary, France and Germany, he was tagged by the German authorities as a “persona non grata.” Thanks to his efforts, 600 French Jews, 10,000 Romanian Jews, 51,000 Hungarian Jews and a few dozen German Jews returned or migrated to Romania, saved from the very clutches of their Nazi pursuers. In 2005, Karadja was posthumously honored for his actions as “Righteous among the Nations” during a ceremony held at the Israeli embassy in Berlin.

Feng Shan Ho (1901 – 1997)

Chinese Diplomat

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Ho was named Consul General of the Chinese consulate in Vienna in 1938, the year when Austria was annexed into Greater Germany by the Nazi regime (Anschluss). After Kristallnacht (Nazi-coordinated attacks on the Jews) later in the year, the situation became increasing difficult for Austrian Jews who were required to show proof of emigration, normally a visa, in order to leave the country. Out of humanitarian concern and in direct violation of the orders of his superior, Ho freely granted visas to Shanghai and continued to do so until 1940 when he was relieved of his duty. Undeniably, thousands of Jewish individuals and families were able to leave for Shanghai, from where a majority would soon after leave for Australia and Hongkong. Ho was posthumously recognized with the title “Righteous among the Nations” in 2001 and came to be known as the “China’s Schindler.”

More Holocaust-themed articles:

·        Heroes of the Holocaust & Their Stories of Courage 1

·        Famous Holocaust Survivors

·        Six Classic Holocaust Literatures