The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust

by Gilbert, Martin

  4 Yaffa Eliach, Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust, pages 142–47.

  5 Ilana Feldblum (Alicija-Irena Taubenfeld), letter to the author, 27 May 2001.

  6 Sharon Jaffa, ‘Saved by the Kindness of Others’, London Jewish News, 8 June 2001.

  7 Janek Weber, letter to the author, 24 September 2001.

  8 Janek Weber, letter to the author, 28 October 2001.

  9 Janek Weber, letter to the author, 24 September 2001.

  10 ‘Data on Rescue Story’, submitted to Yad Vashem, 22 June 1999 (copy sent to the author by Anna Zellner, 5 July 2001).

  11 Marcel Jarvin, letter to the author, 31 October 2001.

  12 ‘This is the story of Sally Wiener during the Tragic Years of World War II’, manuscript enclosed with a letter from Henry Wiener to the author, 13 June 2001.

  13 Suzan E. Hagstrom, Sara’s Children, page 77.

  14 Rose Kfar, ‘Reuniting with My Family (1945–1948)’, Hidden Child newsletter, Summer 2001.

  15 Report of 7 October 1943, Cracow, in Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin, Righteous Among Nations, page 602.

  16 Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin, Righteous Among Nations, page 603.

  17 Simon Wiesenthal Centre, ‘Children of the Holocaust’ website, www.graceproducts.com.

  18 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 2696.

  19 Documentaries International, Washington DC, video documentary, The Other Side of Faith, 1991.

  20 Maria Klein, testimony recorded on 15 February 1986, in Ewa Kurek, Your Life Is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, 1939–1945, pages 188–90.

  21 The newspaper was Tygodnik Powszechny, quoted in Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki, He Who Saves One Life, page 284.

  22 Testimony of Yosef Buzhminsky, Eichmann trial, 2 May 1961, session 24.

  23 Yehuda Bauer, The Holocaust in Historical Perspective, pages 92–93.

  1 ‘Righteous Among the Nations—per Country & Ethnic Origin,’ 1 January 2002, Yad Vashem Department for the Righteous Among the Nations (list sent to the author on 29 January 2002). The exact German figure, by 1 January 2002, was 358.

  2 Denis Staunton, ‘In Defiance of Fascism’ (obituary), Guardian, 18 November 1997. Countess von Maltzan later married Hans Hirschel, the man whom she had saved. A film of her wartime adventures was made in 1985: The Forbidden, directed by Anthony Page.

  3 Gottfried Paasche, interview in Maclean’s magazine (Toronto), 28 February 2000.

  4 Gottfried Paasche, letter to the author, 4 March 2002.

  5 Jonathan Curiel, ‘Maria Paasche, Daughter of German General Who Helped Jews Escape Nazis’ (obituary), San Francisco Chronicle, 5 February 2000.

  6 Henry Walter Brann, ‘Pastor Who Rescued Jews Is Honoured’, Jewish Week, Washington DC, 20 August 1970.

  7 Testimony of Heinrich Grüber, Eichmann trial, Jerusalem, 16 May 1961, session 41.

  8 Testimony of Heinrich Grüber, Eichmann trial, Jerusalem, 16 May 1961, session 41.

  9 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 75.

  10 H. D. Leuner, When Compassion Was a Crime, page 10; Zvi Bacharach, ‘Lichtenberg, Bernhard (1875–1943)’, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volume 3, page 868.

  11 Ger van Roon, Widerstand im Dritten Reich: Ein Überblick (Munich, 1980), cited by Egon Larsen, ‘Resistance in Nazi Germany’.

  12 Masha Leon, Forward, 14 July 2000, reviewing the documentary film Treason or Honour by Sy Rotter (president of the Documentary Film and Video Foundation), interviews with Jewish survivors and their German rescuers.

  13 Stephen Nicholls, From Fortune to Misfortune, page 14.

  14 Barbara Sofer, ‘An Angel Named Maria’, Jerusalem Post, 2 February 2001.

  15 Louis P. Lochner (editor), The Goebbels Diaries, page 209.

  16 Elizabeth Petuchowski, ‘Gertrud Luckner: Resistance and Assistance. A German Woman Who Defied Nazis and Aided Jews’, in Ministers of Compassion During the Nazi Period, Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, 1999.

  17 Letter received in the Reich Chancellery on 25 March 1943, International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NG-1903.

  18 Peter Schneider, ‘The Good Germans’, New York Times Magazine, 13 February 2000.

  19 Inge Deutschkron, letter to Yad Vashem, 9 October 1969, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 671.

  20 Lili Bat Aharon, ‘Forgotten Life-savers on German TV’, Jerusalem Post, 10 September 1973.

  21 Testimony of Ruth Gumpel, 16 May 1988, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 5505.

  22 Testimony of Bruno Gumpel, 30 November 1987, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 5505.

  23 Conversation with Rudolf and Felicia Horstmeyer’s granddaughter, Nicky Gavron, 23 March 2002.

  24 Evy (Goldstein) Woods, letter to the author, 16 August 2001.

  25 ‘Portrait of Evelyn Goldstein as a hidden child…’, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photo Archive, Worksheet 05780.

  26 Charles C. Milford, letter to the author, 29 July 2001. The historian Nathan Stoltzfus entitled his book on the Rosenstrasse protest Resistance of the Heart.

  27 Margit A. Diamond, letter to the author, 2 May 2001.

  28 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 671.

  29 Martin Gilbert, Holocaust Journey, page 31, ‘Day 2: Berlin’.

  30 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photo Archive, Worksheet 05772.

  31 ‘Righteous Among the Nations—per Country & Ethnic Origin,’ 1 January 2002, Yad Vashem Department for the Righteous Among the Nations (list sent to the author on 29 January 2002).

  32 Helena Horowitz, letter to the author, 26 January 2001.

  33 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 9607. The award to Lambert Grutsch was made on 24 February 2002.

  34 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 4962.

  35 Dr Ella Lingens-Reiner, speech at the Israel President’s House, 6 May 1998, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 1730.

  36 She was sent to Auschwitz Main Camp, also known as Auschwitz I, which had been set up in 1940 for Poles and other non-Jews, as a punishment camp of extreme hardship. Much later, she was to write a book about Auschwitz Main Camp: Ella Ringens-Reiner, Prisoners of Fear (London: Quill Press, 2000).

  37 Details appear in Lorraine Justman-Wisnicki’s memoir, to be published shortly, Quest for Life—Ave Pax (extracts enclosed in a letter to the author, 14 August 2000). Her story is also told in Steve Schloss, ‘Reader Remembers: Holocaust Victim is Surprised as Rescuers are Honoured in Jerusalem’.

  1 Mordecai Paldiel, ‘Helmrich, Eberhard’, in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volume 2, page 654.

  2 Ruby Gonzales, ‘Recognition Sought for Man Who Defied Nazis’, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, 13 May 2001.

  3 Testimonies of Major Plagge’s German employees, ‘Translation of Transcript of the Denazification File of Karl Plagge’, State Archive, Hesse. Provided to the author by Pearl Good.

  4 Michael Good, letter to the author, 27 February 2001.

  5 Mordecai Paldiel, ‘Schmid, Anton (1900–1942)’, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volume 4, page 1333.

  6 Mania Salinger, manuscript, sent to the author 18 July 2000.

  7 Yehudis Pshenitse, ‘Wanderings of a Child’, Pinkas Novy-Dvor (Nowy Dwor memorial book), quoted in Jack Kugelmass and Jonathan Boyarin (translators and editors), From a Ruined Garden: The Memorial Books of Polish Jewry, page 177.

  8 I am grateful to Ben Helfgott for the story of Guterman and Wurl: Ben Helfgott, in conversation with the author, 11 January 2002.

  9 Ernie Meyer, ‘German Officer—and Gentleman’, Jerusalem Post, 26 April 1982.

  10 Saul Friedlander, Counterfeit Nazi: The Ambiguity of Good, pages 18–19 and 22.

  11 Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe, pages 535–36.

  12 Letter d
ated 22 January 1995, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 6619.

  13 Testimony of Mina Doron, 12 January 1995, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 6619.

  14 Testimony of Shamai Kizelshtein, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 7307.

  15 Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe, pages 898–99.

  16 Ya’akov Friedler, ‘Nazi Spirit Not Dead in Germany, Rescuer of Polish Jews Says’, Jerusalem Post, 21 October 1969.

  17 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 925.

  18 Letter to Yad Vashem, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 925.

  19 Jacob Presser, Ashes in the Wind, pages 298–9.

  20 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 4997.

  21 Mordecai Paldiel, Saving the Jews, pages 119–25.

  22 Mordecai Paldiel, Saving the Jews, pages 126–32.

  23 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 2687.

  24 Letter of 29 December 1958, quoted in Shmuel Spector, The Holocaust of Volhynian Jews, 1941–1944, page 185.

  25 Shmuel Spector, The Holocaust of Volhynian Jews, 1941–1944, pages 254–55.

  26 Shmuel Spector, ‘Graebe, Hermann Friedrich (1900–1986)’, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volume 2, pages 599–600.

  27 Douglas K. Huneke, The Moses of Rovno, page xvii.

  28 Lili Bat Aharon, ‘Forgotten Life-savers on German TV’, Jerusalem Post, 10 September 1973.

  29 ‘Summary’ dated 25 November 1963, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 21.

  30 Julius Madritsch, Menschen in Not! (‘People in distress!’), page 16.

  31 Letter of 4 July 1963, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 23.

  32 Julius Madritsch, Menschen in Not! (‘People in distress!), pages 20–22.

  33 Letter of 4 July 1963, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 21.

  34 Letter of 15 March 1963, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 21.

  35 ‘Julius Madritsch’, List, October 1944. The list names forty men and twenty women. Robin O’Neil, private archive.

  36 Mordecai Paldiel, ‘Schindler, Oskar (1908–1974)’, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, volume 4, pages 1331–32.

  37 Abraham Zuckerman, A Voice in the Chorus: Memoirs of a Teenager Saved by Schindler, pages 80, 82.

  38 Documents concerning Oskar Schindler, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 20.

  39 Including, in addition to Thomas Keneally’s novel and Steven Spielberg’s film, Abraham Zuckerman’s A Voice in the Chorus: Memoirs of a Teenager Saved by Schindler, and Dr David Crowe’s Oskar Schindler: A Life.

  40 Judge Moshe Bejski, in conversation with the author, 1985.

  41 Oskar Schindler, ‘Report on activities and expenditures for the rescue of Jews during the years 1939 to 1945…’, Buenos Aires, 30 October 1955, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 20.

  42 Information based upon the official bill of lading (Yad Vashem archives, file 0–1/164); provided by Dr J. Kermisz, Director of Archives, Yad Vashem, letter to the author, 19 October 1977.

  43 Eulogy delivered on 28 October 1974, quoted in Moshe Bejski, ‘Oskar Schindler and Schindler’s List’.

  44 Judge Moshe Bejski, letter to Steven Spielberg’s office, 27 September 1993, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 20. SS Obersturmführer is the SS equivalent of a first lieutenant in the American army (lieutenant in the British army).

  45 Information provided by Judge Moshe Bejski, 1985.

  46 Oskar Schindler, ‘Report on activities and expenditures for the rescue of Jews during the years 1939 to 1945…’, Buenos Aires, 30 October 1955, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 20.

  47 Judge Moshe Bejski, letter to Steven Spielberg, 7 April 1994, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 20.

  48 Oskar Schindler, ‘Report on activities and expenditures for the rescue of Jews during the years 1939 to 1945…’, Buenos Aires, 30 October 1955, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 20.

  49 Ben Helfgott, in conversation with the author, 25 June 2000

  50 Lili Pohlmann, recollections, sent to the author, 1995.

  1 Frank Bright (Frantisek Brichta), letter to the author, 29 November 2000.

  2 Henry Wilde, letter to the author, 23 June 2001.

  3 Gay Block and Malka Drucker, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, page 208.

  4 Letter of 8 January 1993, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 5474.

  5 ‘Eger’, in Shmuel Spector (editor in chief), The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, volume 1, A–J, page 355.

  6 Uta Ginz, ‘Statement’, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 93.

  7 Suse Lotte Tieze, testimony of 17 April 1963, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 93.

  8 Hana Greenfield, letter to the author, 14 February 2001. The stamp was issued on 1 February 1995.

  9 David Korn, letter to the author, 21 August 2001.

  10 Letter of 22 July 1991, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 721.

  11 David Korn, letter to the author, 21 August 2001. Pastor Kuna’s story, about which David Korn submitted testimony, is in Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 721.

  12 Jana Tanner, letter to the author, 27 July 2001.

  13 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photo Archive, Worksheet 89116.

  14 The girls were taken to Nonantola (see chapter 15).

  15 Information provided by Mordecai Paldiel, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Department, notes for the author, 25 April 2002; International Catholic—Jewish Historical Commission, ‘The Vatican and the Holocaust: A Preliminary Report’, October 2000, page 11.

  16 ‘Looking For…’, Hidden Child newsletter, volume 9, number 1, Spring 2000.

  17 Ruth Gruber, Haven: The Unknown Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees, page 72.

  18 Information provided by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, New York, on its website. In the year 2002, Risto Ristic, then in his seventies, living in the Serbian town of Zemun, was in receipt of financial help from the Foundation.

  19 Yad Vashem News (Jerusalem), June 1984, pages 11–12. On 29 January 1984 the State of Israel recognized Mustafa Hardaga and his wife as Righteous Among the Nations.

  20 Batsheva Tsur, ‘Sarajevo Family Finds Refuge with Israelis They Saved in WWII’, Jerusalem Post, 13 February 1994.

  21 Rudolph Chelminski, ‘A Debt Repaid’, Reader’s Digest, September 2000.

  22 The author of the book was Maius Mircu. Additional details have been provided by Leonid Saharovici, letter to the author, 22 February 2002.

  23 Testimony in Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 499, quoted in ‘The Mayor of Cernauti’, in Arieh L. Bauminger, The Righteous, pages 74–7.

  24 International Catholic–Jewish Historical Commission, ‘The Vatican and the Holocaust: A Preliminary Report’, October 2000, page 10.

  25 Information provided by Pearl Fichman, letter to the author, 19 March 2001.

  26 Harvey Sarner, Rescue in Albania, frontispiece.

  27 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photo Archive, Worksheet 24722.

  28 Irene Grunbaum, Escape Through the Balkans: The Autobiography of Irene Grunbaum, page 139.

  29 Shmuel Spector (editor in chief), The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, volume 1, pages 26–27.

  30 Mordecai Paldiel, quoted in the magazine Martyrdom and Resistance, International Society for Yad Vashem, January–February 1999.

  31 Information provided by Yitzchak Kerem, historian of the Jews of Greece, 16 July 1989: Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 4128.

  32 Telegram from the Italian consul-general, Guelfo Zamboni, to the Italian diplomatic mission in Rome, 3 April 1943, Daniel
Carpi, Italian Diplomatic Documents on the History of the Holocaust in Greece (1941–1943), page 151.

  33 Greek National Archives.

  34 Dr Rachel Dalven, ‘The Holocaust in Janina’, in Solomon Gaon and M. Mitchell Serels (editors), Sephardim and the Holocaust, New York: Jacob E. Safra Institute of Sephardic Studies, Yeshiva University, 1987, page 62, n. 22.

  35 Benek (Baruch) Sharoni, ‘Man’s Humanity to Man’, Mizkor, October 2000.

  36 Richard Kay, ‘Revealed: Secret Heroism of Prince Philip’s Mother’, Daily Mail, 26 July 1993.

  37 Jacques Cohen was to become a member of the Greek Foreign Ministry, and a consultant (in 1993) to the Greek delegation to NATO.

  38 ‘Noulis Vital and Sam Levy…in hiding from the Germans in the French Institute, Athens’, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photo Archive, Worksheet 61661.

  39 ‘Rena Shaki in hiding with her rescuers…’, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Photo Archive, Worksheet 45911.

  40 Avi Sharon, ‘A Youth in Hiding’, The Greek American, 29 November 1997.

  41 Jeff M. Levis, letter to the author, 26 December 2001.

  42 Joseph Matsas, The Participation of the Greek Jews in the National Resistance (1940–1944).

  43 Sam Modiano, ‘Island’s Jews Saved by Greek Archbishop’, Jewish Chronicle, 3 November 1978.

  44 Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 1868. All 1,800 Jews living on Corfu were taken to Auschwitz, where all but 200 were murdered.

  45 Shmuel Spector, letter of 21 January 1963, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 12.

  46 Michael Bar-Zohar, Beyond Hitler’s Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria’s Jews, pages 168–69.

  47 Uriel Tal (editor), The Grey Book: A Collection of Protests Against Anti-Semitism and the Persecution of Jews Issued by Non-Roman Catholic Churches and Church Leaders During Hitler’s Rule, page 193.

  48 Michael Bar-Zohar, Beyond Hitler’s Grasp: The Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria’s Jews, page 194.

  49 ‘Minute no. 4 of the session on April 2/March 20 of the old-style Julian Calendar in the year 1943’, Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive, file 9375.