A little over half of the Righteous Among the Nations recognized by Yad Vashem are women. While many of them acted in cooperation with other family members, some of these courageous women were the initiators of the rescue and acted independently to save Jews. Here are some of their stories.
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Sofka Skipwith
The Russian princess who saved Jews while she was incarcerated in the Vittel camp in France
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Suzanne Spaak
The mother of two who left the comfort of her upper-class home in Paris to join the Underground and rescue Jews
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Jeanne Daman
The Belgian teacher who was outraged by the persecution of the Jews and joined a rescue network
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Johanna Eck
The Berlin housewife who hid Jews in her small apartment
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Irena Sendler
The Zegota activist who smuggled children out of the Warsaw Ghetto
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Klara Baić
The Serbian single mother who sheltered two Jewish boys in her home
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Anna Igumnova
The widowed chemist who escaped from the Soviet Union, and saved her Jewish colleague and her child in Slovakia
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Maria Agnese Tribbioli
The Mother Superior of a convent in Florence where Jewish families were hidden during the German raids
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Elisabeta Strul
The young Romanian worker who sheltered her Jewish neighbors during the Iasi pogrom
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Ludviga Pukas
The Ukrainian maid who remained faithful to her employer, hiding her and her children
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Lois Gunden
The American Mennonite from Goshen, Indiana, who saved Jewish children in France
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Antonina Gordey
The Belorussian nanny who let her relatives believe that the little girl she was hiding was her illegitimate child
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Caecilia Loots
The Dutch director of a private school who hid Jews in the school building
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Bronislava Krištopavičienė
The Lithuanian nurse whose husband had been murdered by the Soviets, and who saved a Jewish child from Kovno
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Sofia Kritikou
The impoverished single mother who hid Jews in her home near Athens, despite her own personal difficulties
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Karolina Juszczykowska
The Polish woman who was executed for hiding two Jews in her home