Conceptual Background

This website is based on the multi volume collection “Jews Who Saved Jews During the Holocaust” written by Moshe Gromb. Here we present some of the stories of thousands of Jews who rescued fellow Jews, forgotten heroes of the Holocaust who, through their sacred sacrifice and extraordinary courage, passed on the legacy of life to future generations.

Nearly eighty years after the outbreak of World War II, Holocaust historiography still tends to focus primarily on Jews as victims. Yet alongside the destruction of European Jewry by the Germans and their collaborators, many Jews fought against their bitter fate. Hundreds of thousands fought in the Allied armies and among the partisans, rebelled in ghettos, and resisted in extermination camps. One of the least acknowledged expressions of Jewish heroism during the Holocaust is the phenomenon of Jews rescuing fellow Jews while taking enormous personal risks. As Holocaust researcher Bella Gutterman stated, this is “another insufficiently recognized aspect in the study of Jewish responses during the Holocaust.”

In 1953, the State of Israel decided, through the Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Law, to assign the institution of Yad Vashem the role of commemorating the “Righteous Among the Nations,” non Jews who risked their lives to save Jews. However, as Holocaust researcher Yehuda Bauer wrote, “Not only non Jews saved Jews; Jews also saved Jews, and at times non Jews were saved by Jews as well.” Without diminishing the value of the actions of the Righteous Among the Nations, it is well known that many of them were assisted by Jews during rescue operations. Without such assistance, their missions would most likely have failed.

It must be remembered that the ability of Jews to act was far more limited than that of non Jews, who were not persecuted by the Nazis. Therefore, the actions of Jewish rescuers should be evaluated in light of these limitations. This phenomenon of rescue by Jews joins the broader spectrum of Jewish resistance to the Nazis and further refutes the claim that the Jews went to their deaths “like sheep to the slaughter.” The actions of Jewish rescuers stand as a profound example of Jewish and human solidarity and represent the highest expression of the ancient Jewish values: “All Israel are responsible for one another” and “Do not stand idly by the blood of your fellow.”

These actions were not a random collection of isolated local episodes, but rather a broad and systematic body of planned rescue efforts. This booklet is dedicated to commemorating the phenomenon of Jewish rescue as part of the effort to bring it to wider public awareness. It should also be noted that many foreign countries awarded state honors to Jewish rescuers.

Source: A joint booklet by B’nai B’rith and the Committee for Honoring the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust.