Heroes Amid the Holocaust

“Righteous Among the Nations” is an official title awarded by Yad Vashem—the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel—on behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

Four Basis conditions Yad Vashem lists them as granting the title. First, must be “active involvement of the rescuer in saving one or several Jews from the threat of death or deportation to death camps.” The second is that there must have been “risk to the rescuer’s life, liberty, or position.” Third, the “initial motivation” It must have been “the intention to help persecuted Jews: i.e. not for payment or any other reward such as religious conversion of the saved person, adoption of a child, etc.” Finally, it must be “existence of testimony of those who were helped or at least unequivocal documentation establishing the nature of the rescue and its circumstances.”

28217 people have been given the title as of January 1, 2022. Many were nominated by those they saved.

While there are several names that are well known—including Oskar Schindler, portrayed by Liam Neeson in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List—there are thousands more whose courage and relentless morality in the face of unimaginable evil remain unknown to most.

Richard Hurowitz’s The Garden of the Righteous: The Heroic Heroes Who Risked their Lives to Save Jews during The Holocaust It offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of several lesser-known but still heroic figures.

It is important to note that rescue efforts during the Holocaust were successful “remains both a celebration of what is best in us and, in its extreme scarcity, an indictment of the worst,” Hurowitz defines the central purpose for the book: to learn. “what motivated the rescuers” To “perhaps distill the values and manners we wish to cherish and to encourage,” Explore 10 rescue stories from the 28,217.

Hurowitz meticulously details every tale of heroism. Sometimes, it seems excessive. But each decade-long backstory helps to bring out the real story of each person and their actions.

These accounts include Aristides de Sousa Mendes, a “little-known midlevel Portuguese diplomat [who] quite possibly saved more people than any other individual during the Holocaust.” Mendes was Portugal’s consul general in Bordeaux, France, and defied the orders of the brutal Salazar regime—including orders from Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar