In Jerusalem at a museum called Yad Vashem, the memories of the Holocaust are held. The lives of the Jewish victims are remembered. Pictures and personal items of the millions of Jews who were killed are stored at this museum. The purpose is to remember---so that the future never repeats what happened during the Holocaust.
But, the 'Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations" honors the individuals who risked their lives to save the Jews around them. Trees are planted in honor of those heroes.
Would you be one of those who risked their lives to save someone else? Or, would you be like the majority, who turned their eyes and ignored what was going on?
Click here: Righteous Among the Nations
During the end of 1944 there was a family that had a small 3 year old child that was suffering under the conditions of the mountains they were hiding in. A 17 year old girl named Olga took the 3 year old (Ferdinand), and kept him as Olga's little brother in their village of Porubka. There were also 2 other adult Jews hiding in the household. An SS officer came by and thought that Ferdinand was a Jew, but Olga reminded him of his daughter, so instead he gave Ferdinand a candy.
ReplyDeleteWhen WWll started there was a lady named Irena Sendler who was a 29 year old social worker. After the Jews were put in the ghettos she managed to obtain a permit that let her enter the ghettos to inspect sanitary conditions. While she was in the Ghettos she would smuggle children out.
ReplyDeleteAh...Gertruda Bablinska. She was the nanny who kept her promise. She lived in Poland. This lovely lady kept with the son she was taking care of even after the family left home and the mother died. She took him in as her own and never left him - no matter how dangerous the journey was to be (bombs, crossing oceans, etc.).
ReplyDeleteDorothea Neff was in Austria when the war started, her friend Lilli Wolff, was a Jew and when she was going to be deported Dorothea hid Lilli in her apartment. Dorothea had to always find excuses for getting extra food, and why she had the stranger with her during air raids. For three years until the war ended Lilli lived in Dorothea's aparment
ReplyDeleteAt Around 1941 in Poland there was a Jewish family of a mother and three boys who used to play football next to a Polish cemetery and later on developed a relationship with the grounds keeper. When the Nazis started taking Jews away from there families the family went the cemetery and the grounds keeper Manko and his wife maryna graciously accepted them. to hide them they dug out a little bunker so that it would look like a grave for them to stay in. When the Nazis searched the house the man was tortured but eventually set free. In the winter when it was too cold to stay underground the family dug under the floor boards in the funeral home. when the Germans searched the house again they fell under ground and killed the mother instantly but the three boys escaped.
ReplyDeleteGertruda Bablinska was the nanny to a Jewish family. She cared for a boy even after he had been orphaned. She had made a promise to his late mother that when the war was over, she would take him to Israel. She protected him and named him her nephew. After the war, she took him to Israel like promised and raised him like a son there.
ReplyDeleteSometime during 1941 a parcel was brought to the offices of the Jewish community. Inside the box was a baby, and a note that said "Please take this baby to my cousin, Blanka Fuerst." The baby was delivered to the cousin who explained that the child's family had been taken to a Concentration Camp, and that the baby's mother had found a way to smuggle the child out. Later on, the cousin found she was unable to keep the child anymore, and left her with a women to take care of the child. A women Djina-Gertruda Beritic came by one day and saw that the child was not being well kept for, and took the child to her house to take care of her. Djina and her son kept the child in these dangerous times and taught the child to read and write. Djina did not want any of her neighbors to know that she was hiding a Jewish child, and so she changed her name. After the war they learned that the child's parents had died at concentration camp, and another Jewish family took the child, insisting that she was safe with them. After the child left, however, Djina still kept in touch with her.
ReplyDeleteLeopold Socha was a poor sewage cleaner who lived in Lwow in Germany. On night when he was cleaning the sewage he saw a family of Jews who were wading in the wast deep water. Leopold directed them to stay there and he and his wife would help them. At first the Jews were able to pay with money they had saved, but then when the money ran out they were still taken care of.
ReplyDeleteAfter 13 months of living in sewers they were finally freed by the red army in 1944. One of the girls moved the the United States of America and kept in contact with Leopold until death.
Traian Popovici was the mayor of a town, and he would stop at nothing to help the Jews that lived there. He tried to end the taking of Jews from his city, but was not successful until later, when about 28,000 Jews were dead already, and the ones who survived got to move back. He was taken out of office and moved back to Russia, but after the war, he wrote a book explaining what it was like during the war.
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