Remembering the Heroes of the Holocaust: 70 Years On

At the beginning of World War II in 1935 Jewish people were taken away from their homes and sent to ghettos and concentration camps. After the Jews were sent to the camps some of them were taken to chambers and were killed with deadly gas. 

1945 saw the liberation of concentration camps all over Europe and Nazi dictatorship came to an end. The Holocaust was a time of overwhelming terror and enduring grief and the ultimate expression of man’s inhumanity with hardly a trace of human kindness. However, there were some deeds of compassion and courage during the Holocaust.

The following names are only some of the extraordinary heroes who risked their own lives to save another. All of these people have been honoured with the title “Righteous among the nations” by the Israeli Yad Vashem memorial which recognises non-Jews who helped save the lives of oppressed Jews.

Raoul Wallenberg- Swedish Diplomat (1912 – 1947)

In Jerusalem the Yad Vashem memorial is dedicated to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II. A street named ‘Avenue of the Righteous’ runs through the area, bordered by 600 trees planted to honour the memory of non-Jewish individuals who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazi executioners. One of these trees bears the name of Raoul Wallenberg. Take a walk with Raoul and his friends and discover the stories that shaped their lives...

                             
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Oskar Schindler – German Industrialist (1908 – 1974)

Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist, spy, and member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunition's factories located in occupied Poland. He is the inspiration for the 1982 novel Schindler's Ark, which reflected his life as an opportunist initially motivated by profit who came to show extraordinary initiative, tenacity, and dedication in order to save the lives of his Jewish employees.

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Irena Sendler – Polish Social Worker (1910 – 2008)

An unfamiliar name to most people, but this remarkable woman defied the Nazis and saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a health worker, she smuggled the children out of the ghetto between 1942 and 1943 to safe hiding places and found non-Jewish families to adopt them.

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Chiune Sugihara – Japanese Diplomat (1900 – 1986)

Sugihara was fluent in Russian so the Japanese sent him to the Lithuanian capital, Kovno, in November 1939. He had learned the language from Russian immigrants during 16 years in a country near Japan. He was ordered to provide Japan with intelligence on Russian and German troop movements in the Baltic region.

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The Holocaust specifically targeted the Jews in what the Nazi's termed as the 'Final Solution' but it must not be forgotten that towards the end of the war, many others were committed to concentration camps such as gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people, political activists and prisoners of war. The total number of deaths has been estimated to be 11,000,000 making World War II the most costliest in terms of human lives.