The Ultimate Price

In a Europe where Jews were ostracized and targeted for murder, most people abandoned their former neighbors, and only a few stood by their side. The price that rescuers had to pay for their actions differed from one country to another. In Eastern Europe, notices were put up threatening those who helped Jews and their families with death. In Germany and Western Europe punishment was generally less severe. However, witnessing the brutal treatment of the population and the perpetrators’ determination to hunt down every single Jew, people must have feared that they would suffer greatly if they attempted to help the persecuted. Moreover, in many places rescuers had to beware not only of the authorities, but there was a great risk of denunciation on the part of their neighbors.

Some of the rescuers had to pay the ultimate price. Here are some of their stories:

Petrus (Pieter) and Adriane Kleibroek and their daughter Nelie

Pieter Kleibroek, a simple farmer from Warmenhuizen in the Netherlands, paid with his life for the decision to hide Abraham and Juliette Drukker and their 13-year-old daughter Marjan. Before the German occupation, Pieter’s daughter, Nelie, worked as a maid for the Drukker family. Once the persecution of the Jews began, Nelie remained in touch with her former employers and tried to help them as best she could. With the onset of the deportations of the Dutch Jews to the camps in the east, the... Continue reading

Henry Christian and Ellen Margrethe Thomsen

With Fishing Boats to Sweden Henry Christian Thomsen and his wife Ellen Margrethe were innkeepers in the village of Snekkersten near Elsinore in north Zeeland. An estimated 1,000 people left for Sweden through this point. The Thomsens were active members in the resistance and their inn became the hub of the clandestine route to Sweden. It was the meeting point for the fishermen who transferred Jews in their boats and the fleeing Jews were sheltered in the inn or directed by the Thomsens to... Continue reading

Jozef and Wiktoria Ulma

Murder in Markowa While indifference and hostility to the Jews’ fate was common, some Poles chose to help their former Jewish neighbors, even though hiding Jews was punishable by death. The murder of the Ulma family – an entire family that was killed together with the Jews they were hiding – has become a symbol of Polish sacrifice and martyrdom during the German occupation. It stands in stark contradiction to the conduct of the villagers of Jedwabne, who murdered their Jewish neighbors... Continue reading

Heinrich and Maria List

"I felt sorry for him" Heinrich (b. 1882) and Maria List (b. 1881), were Catholic farmers who lived in the predominantly Protestant village of Ernsbach in Hesse, where Maria had been born. Their son was a soldier at the front. One morning, sometime in the middle of November 1941, Ferdinand Strauss appeared at the List home and asked for refuge. The Lists had known the Jewish Strauss family through business contacts from before the war, and Ferdinand had come to their home seeking for help. The... Continue reading

Johan Gerard and Wilhelmina Dora Westerweel

Johan (Joop) Westerweel was one of the most daring and successful of the Dutch Resistance leaders until his execution by the Nazis in August 1944. His background in education and his unconventional parents, who belonged to a non-consensual sect of Protestantism - the Derbists – may have prepared him for the unique rescue operation that he set into motion. Joop’s motto was one of non-violent resistance. As a convinced pacifist, he had been expelled from the Dutch East Indies for refusing to... Continue reading

Malgorzata Wolska and her children Mieczyslaw, Halina (Michalecka-Wolska), Wanda (Szandurska- Wolska) and nephew Janusz Wysocki

The Failed Attempt to Rescue Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum The Wolski family lived at 81 Grojecka Street, Warsaw, in a property that they owned. It consisted of a two-story building with a garden and a greenhouse that was maintained by Mieczyslaw Wolski, who was a gardener by trade. Mieczyslaw lived with his mother Malgorzata, his sisters, Halina and Wanda, and his nephew, Janusz Wysocki. During the war, the family gave shelter to over 30 Jews, including Dr. Emanuel Ringleblum, a well-known... Continue reading

Prokofiy and Lidiya Ivanov, Yelizaveta Kondratyeva

The Unusual Fate of Two Sisters Prokofiy Ivanov, born 1888, lived with his wife Lidiya and their grown-up daughters Lyuba and Lyusya, in the village of Kosachevka, not far from Petrovichi, some 50 km south of Smolensk, in Russia. The couple worked as school teachers in the village school. At the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in summer 1941 their daughter, Lyuba, was enlisted by the Red Army and later fell in combat. The area of Kosachevka was occupied by the Germans in the end of July... Continue reading

Mykolas and Jadvyga Šimelis

The Forrester’s Sacrifice Mykolas Šimelis was a simple forester and lived in the village of Tarpumiškis near the town of Kaišiadorys with his wife, Jadvyga and their five young children. Šimelis had working relations with Meir Koren, the owner of a tar and terpentine factory in Vievis – a relation which developed into friendship. Most of the Jews in Vievis were killed in October 1941. Koren and his family managed to go into hiding, helped by several locals. By August 1942 they were... Continue reading

Milena Jesenská

Milena – Franz Kafka's Love I see you more clearly, the movements of your body, your hands, so quick, so determined, it's almost a meeting, although when I try to raise my eyes to your face, what breaks into the flow of the letter...is fire and I see nothing but fire. (from a letter by Franz Kafka to Milena Jesenská) Milena Jesenská was born August 10, 1896 in Prague. Her father was a dentist and professor of medicine at Charles University in Prague, a conservative Catholic who was a Czech... Continue reading

Lucien Bunel (Father Jacques)

“Goodbye Children” Lucien Bunel, or Father Jacques, as he was know by everybody, was a Carmelite priest and the director of the Petit Collège des Carmes, in Avon, near Fontainebleau. Born in 1900, into a working class family in Normandy, he was ordained as a priest in 1925. In his first years as a priest he served in the St. Joseph seminar in Le Havre. While teaching religion and English to the students, he felt especially close to the port’s dock-workers and the people from the poor... Continue reading