World Response - Individual and Other Nations

Of the 8.86 million Jews who lived in Europe before the Holocaust, it is generally believed that six million perished as a result of Nazi genocide. Hundreds of thousands of others would have joined them were it not for the courageous intervention of a few world leaders and thousands of individuals who risked their lives in order to save Jews from the gas chambers. Many of these men and women paid for their heroic efforts with their lives.

The Gestapo routinely offered a bounty for those who turned in Jews who were hiding. This bounty consisted of a quart of liquor, four pounds of sugar, a carton of cigarettes, or, at times, small cash payments. For many civilians, these commodities were unobtainable through normal channels, and thus they were provided with a powerful incentive to cooperate with the Gestapo above and beyond any hatred they may have harbored against the Jews.

Those who resisted the Gestapo and hid Jews did so at grave personal peril. Any person caught hiding a Jew was immediately shot on the spot or taken out to be publicly hanged by the S.S. At a time when living space, food, sanitation facilities, and medicine were at a premium, those who hid Jews from the Nazis sacrificed a great deal, including the risk to their lives.

Those non-Jews who worked at great risk to their personal safety to save Jews became known as the "Righteous Gentiles." There are thousands of stories of great valor which will never be told because the Nazis executed many of these Righteous Gentiles. Among those whose stories are the most celebrated are:

Raoul Wallenberg - He was a Swedish diplomat who made it a special, personal mission to help save the Jews of Hungary. More than 30,000 Jews received special Swedish passports from Wallenberg. He set up "safe houses," distributed food and medical supplies, and virtually single-handedly set up a bureaucracy in Budapest, Hungary's capital, designed to protect Jews. More than 90,000 Budapest Jews were deported to the death camps and murdered, and Wallenberg's efforts may have reduced the number of those murdered by half. As a diplomat, he successfully confronted the Nazis at great risk to his own safety. Following the "liberation" of Budapest by the Soviets, he was arrested by them, thrown in prison, and never heard from again. Reports often surface, unconfirmed, that he is still alive, although the Soviets announced his death two years after his arrest.

Dr. Jan Karski - He was the contact between the Polish resistance and the Polish government in exile. He was smuggled into the Warsaw ghetto to hear what was occurring there. Asked to tell the story to the rest of the world, he reported on his experience to other world leaders, including President Roosevelt.

Cardinal Archbishop of Lwow (Count Andreas Szeptycki) - He was a member of the Polish Catholic hierarchy who ordered that the clergy reporting to him act to save Jews.

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski - He was a founder of the Polish resistance who organized an underground organization, comprised mostly of Catholics, to save Jews. He worked to provide false documents to Jews living outside the Warsaw ghetto. In the fall of 1942, he helped found an organization (Council for Aid to Jews) which successfully saved many Jews from the gas chambers.

Pastor Andre Trocme and Daniel Trocme - Pastor Trocme was the religious leader of the Huguenot village of LeChambon-sur-Lignon, France, which hid and saved 5,000 Jews. Teacher Daniel Trocme was deported with his students in the only successful Gestapo raid and died in Maidanek.

Why did Gentiles risk their lives to save the Jews?

  • religious beliefs and humanitarian concerns
  • resistance against the Nazis regardless of feelings about the Jews
  • payment provided by Jews who were hidden