By Rabbi Mitchell Hurvitz
Elie Wiesel z’l was deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. He was “lucky” to be selected for forced labor and thus survive. He later said, “I thought in 1945 antisemitism died in Auschwitz, but I was wrong. Its victims perished, antisemitism did not.”
In 2005, the United Nations designated “International Holocaust Remembrance Day” to commemorate the January 27th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945. On this day, the world is to remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and the Jewish resistance that accompanied and followed these events. In the shadow of such horror, we sit in the mournful darkness of our pain, suffering, and multigenerational trauma that the six million Jewish victims and their families sustained.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an opportunity to look both backward and forward and link the memory of the past with a call to conscience in the present. We remember the loss of children and adults, each individual who had a unique life and story cut short by their extermination. The scale of our collective loss is too much. And, yet, we must remember because of the reality of ongoing antisemitic hatred, threats, and violence.
The Holocaust is the paradigm for how human beings can embody evil. We must confront the evildoers who exist within our world. The irony of the Holocaust is that the worst examples of evildoers are omnipresent. Yet, there are stunning examples of the men and women who refused to stand idly by while innocent blood was shed.
Viktor Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor. He wrote about “Men’s Search for Meaning” and human capacity for good. He recorded incidents of kindness that concentration camp prisoners would show others, even at their significant personal risk. Unfortunately, these prisoners were the minority, yet we can perceive the inspirational hope that people have the capacity for good under the worst circumstances.
In 1953, Israel created Yad Vashem, their major Holocaust Memorial Museum. In addition to recalling the stories of the victims, they also serve as Israel’s “Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Memorial Authority.”
The tasks of Yad Vashem are to commemorate the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust, pay tribute to the Jewish resistance fighters, and honor the “high-minded Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews.” The “Avenue of the Righteous” was created by planting trees to commemorate the “righteous gentiles,” or the “righteous among the nations.”
In 1962, a Commission was formed and chaired by Justice Moshe Landau, a member of Israel’s Supreme Court, and their responsibility was to create the criteria to define who was a “righteous gentile” or a “righteous rescuer.”
There are four primary qualifications:
1. Individual Holocaust rescuers must have been actively involved in saving Jews from the threat of death or deportation to concentration camps or killing centers.
2. Individual must have risked their own life or liberty in their attempt to save Jews.
3. The original motive for rescue must have been to protect and save Jews from the Holocaust. Motivations not considered included potential financial gain, protecting Jews to convert them to Christianity, taking a Jewish child with the intention of adoption, or rescuing individuals during resistance activities that were not explicitly geared towards rescuing Jews.
4. There must be first-hand testimony from those rescued to verify the individual’s role in the rescue. If testimony does not exist or cannot be found, there must be irrefutable documentation of the individual’s participation in the rescue and the conditions surrounding it.
Four distinct ways often manifested amongst the “righteous rescuers.”
1. Some hid Jews in the rescuer’s home or on their property and provided food and other necessities to the Jews while in hiding.
2. Some of the Righteous obtained false papers and false identities that helped to save Jews.
3. Some helped Jews escape from Nazi-occupied territory to a less dangerous area.
4. Some rescuers saved children after their parents were taken away, most of whom were murdered.
The Righteous Among the Nations are people from a myriad of diverse backgrounds: Christians from all denominations, Muslims, Atheists, etc.
Yad Vashem retains an exhaustive list of individuals and groups awarded the title “Righteous Among the Nations.” And a shining example is Raoul Wallenberg.
Wallenberg was a wealthy Swedish businessman who chose to serve as a special Swedish envoy to Hungary during the war’s later stages. His purpose in service was to try to find a way to save Hungary’s Jewish citizens while it was under Nazi occupation.
By 1944, as many as 12,000 Jews were deported from Hungary to concentration camps each day. By the time of Wallenberg’s arrival in Hungary in 1944, over two-thirds of the Jewish population had been deported to Auschwitz in the space of just a few months, and only 230,000 Hungarian Jews remained.
Wallenberg issued protective passes “supposedly” authorized by the Swedish government to as many of the remaining Jewish citizens as he could. The passes were illegal, and Wallenberg had produced them on a mimeograph in yellow and blue, with the Swedish three-crown symbol in the corner. While fake, they looked official enough to trick the Nazi and Hungarian authorities.
Additionally, he rented 32 buildings in Budapest, which he established as Swedish extraterritorial safe houses. He hung large Swedish flags from the buildings and placed signs over the doors calling the houses “The Swedish Library” and “Swedish Research Institute.” Hungarian Jews lived in these buildings in relative safety.
One driver working for Wallenberg recounted the Swedish diplomat’s actions upon intercepting a trainload of Jews about to leave for Auschwitz:
“Wallenberg climbed up on the train’s roof and began handing in protective passes through the doors that were not yet sealed. He ignored orders from the Germans for him to get down, then the Arrow Cross men [the Hungarian fascists working with the Nazis] began shooting and shouting at him to go away. He ignored them and calmly continued handing out passports to the hands that were reaching out for them. I believe the Arrow Cross men deliberately aimed over his head, as not one shot hit him… I think this is what they did because they were so impressed by his courage. After Wallenberg had handed over the last of the passports, he ordered all those who had one to leave the train and walk to the caravan of cars parked nearby, all marked in Swedish colours. I don’t remember exactly how many, but he saved dozens off that train, and the Germans and Arrow Cross were so dumbfounded they let him get away with it.”
In less than a year, Wallenberg may have saved as many as 100,000 Jews, more than any other person or institution succeeded in doing in Europe during the war.
By the end of 1944, the Soviet army had circled Budapest, although the Germans would not surrender. On January 17, 1945, during the height of the German-Russian fighting, Wallenberg was summoned by a Russian general on suspicion of being an American spy. No confirmed reports exist of Wallenberg after that date, although Russian authorities stated that he died in a Soviet Prison in 1947.
My childhood congressman, Tom Lantos z’l, was one of the Hungarian Jews saved by Wallenberg. He said:
“During the Nazi occupation, this heroic young diplomat left behind the comfort and safety of Stockholm to rescue his fellow human beings in the hell that was wartime Budapest. He had little in common with them: he was a Lutheran, they were Jewish; he was a Swede, they were Hungarians. And yet, with inspired courage and creativity, he saved the lives of tens of thousands of men, women, and children by placing them under the protection of the Swedish crown. In this age devoid of heroes, Wallenberg is the archetype of a hero who risked his life day in and day out to save the lives of tens of thousands of people he did not know whose religion he did not share.”
Each International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we take the time to remember the horror of the Holocaust. Also, inspired by the “Righteous Among the Nations,” we help ensure that Never Again is not a prayerful wish but a guarantee!
Shabbat Shalom.
Temple Sholom’s Senior Rabbi Mitchell M. Hurvitz is a scholar, teacher, community activist and preacher, and is recognized as one of the prominent religious leaders in the New Canaan and Greenwich areas and beyond. A frequent guest speaker at synagogues and churches, study groups, community institutions and universities, he is a charismatic personality who engages individuals and stimulates hearts and minds. His teachings can be found in the New Canaan Sentinel and in other local and national publications.
