...........................Profiles in Courage.....................................

2013 Holocaust Remembrance Day Message of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

 

Profile in Courage: Oskar Schindler

Link Oskar Schindler Google search

Oskar Schindler
US Holocaust Memorial Museum

 

Oskar Schindler
Wikipedia

Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving almost 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively. He is the subject of the novel Schindler's Ark, and the film based on it, Schindler's List. Read more

 

Schindler's List Trailer                             Schindler's List scenes

 

 

Profile in Courage: Raoul Wallenberg

Link Wallenberg Google

Choosing to Act: Raoul Wallenberg
US Holocaust Memorial Museum

 

Raoul Wallenberg
Wikipedia

Raoul Wallenberg (August 4, 1912 – July 17, 1947?) was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II. While serving as Sweden's special envoy in Budapest between July and December 1944, Wallenberg issued protective passports and sheltered Jews in buildings designated as Swedish territory, saving tens of thousands of lives.

On January 17, 1945, during the Siege of Budapest by the Red Army, Wallenberg was detained by Soviet authorities on suspicion of espionage and subsequently disappeared. He was later reported to have died on July 7, 1947 in Lubyanka prison in Moscow. The motives behind Wallenberg's arrest and imprisonment by the Soviets, along with questions surrounding the circumstances of his death and his possible ties to US intelligence, remain mysterious and are the subject of continued speculation.

Due to his courageous actions on behalf of the Hungarian Jews, Raoul Wallenberg has been the subject of numerous humanitarian honors in the decades following his presumed death. In 1981, Congressman Tom Lantos, among those saved by Wallenberg, sponsored a bill making Wallenberg an Honorary Citizen of the United States. He is also an honorary citizen of Canada, Hungary, and Israel. Israel has also designated Wallenberg one of the Righteous among the Nations. Monuments have been dedicated to him, and streets have been named after him throughout the world. A Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States was created in 1981 to "perpetuate the humanitarian ideals and the nonviolent courage of Raoul Wallenberg". It gives the Raoul Wallenberg Award annually to recognize persons who carry out those goals. A postage stamp was issued by the U.S. in his honor in 1997.

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Profile in Courage: Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler

Irena Sendler
Wikipedia

 

Irena Sendler (née Krzyzanowska), also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Poland, nom de guerre "Jolanta" (15 February 1910 – 12 May 2008),[1] was a Polish nurse and social worker who served in the Polish Underground in German-occupied Warsaw during World War II, and was head of the children's section of Zegota,[2][3] the Polish Council to Aid Jews (Polish: Rada Pomocy Zydom), which was active from 1942 to 1945.

 

Assisted by some two dozen other Zegota members, Sendler smuggled approximately 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and then provided them with false identity documents and shelter outside the Ghetto, saving those children from the Holocaust.[4] With the exception of diplomats who issued visas to help Jews flee Nazi-occupied Europe, Sendler saved more Jews than any other individual during the Holocaust.[5]

 

The German occupiers eventually discovered her activities and she was arrested by the Gestapo, tortured, and sentenced to death, but she managed to evade execution and survive the war. In 1965, Sendler was recognised by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations. Late in life she was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honor, for her wartime humanitarian efforts. Read more

 

Profile in Courage: Nicholas Winton

Nicholas Winton

Nicholas Winton
Wikipedia

 

Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE (born Nicholas George Wertheim; 19 May 1909 – 1 July 2015) was a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport (German for "children transportation"). Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain.[2] The world found out about his work over 40 years later, in 1988. The British press dubbed him the "British Schindler".[3] On 28 October 2014, he was awarded the highest honour of the Czech Republic, the Order of the White Lion (1st class), by Czech President Miloš Zeman. Read more

 

Sir Nicholas Winton, interview with Bob Simon on 60 Minutes September 7, 2014, video below.

 

How a German Officer Saved My Family

Lili Bermant recounts how her family met a German officer on the train while trying to leave Belgium during World War II.