DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE€¦ · DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE Yad Vashem began to award the title “Righteous...
Transcript of DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE€¦ · DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE Yad Vashem began to award the title “Righteous...
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
May 1-8, 2016
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
2
Each year, the United States Holocaust
Memorial Museum leads the nation in
commemorating Days of Remembrance.
3
Days of Remembrance was
established by the U.S. Congress to
memorialize the six million Jews
murdered in the Holocaust—as well as
the millions of non-Jewish victims—of
Nazi persecution.
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
4
Millions of ordinary people witnessed the crimes of the
Holocaust—in the countryside and city squares, in stores
and schools, in homes, and workplaces.
The banner reads: “The Jews are our misfortune.”
Across Europe, the Nazis
found countless helpers who
willingly collaborated or were
complicit in the crimes
through their inactions.
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
5
The victims had no control over their fates.
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
6
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
The rescuers, on the other hand, made choices. They chose
to risk their own lives, their families’ lives, and their homes to
help save thousands of innocents.
In 1953, the state of Israel established Yad Vashem, the
Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, in
order to document and record the history of the Jewish people
during the Holocaust as well as to acknowledge the countless
non-Jewish individuals who risked their lives to save Jews.
7
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Yad Vashem began to award the title “Righteous Among the
Nations” in 1963, and since that time—26,119 rescuers from
51 countries—have been acknowledged for their efforts.
This presentation commemorate the actions and stories of the
five Americans, ordinary people who through their actions
became extraordinary. Their acts of courage—to intervene
and help rescue—those being persecuted by the Nazis and
who have been awarded the title of “Righteous Among the
Nations.”
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Varian Fry, a 32 year old Harvard-educated
classicist and journalist from New York City,
serving as a foreign correspondent who
saved thousands of endangered refugees
who were caught in the Vichy French zone
escape from Nazi terror during World War
II. This man, known as “the American
Schindler,” died in obscurity and without
recognition.
8
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Despite having had no training in underground work and no
knowledge of forgers, black marketeers, or secret passages,
within 24 hours after his arrival in France Fry committed
himself to a mission that saved prominent persons such as
artists Marc Chagall and Max Ernst, writer Hannah Arendt,
and sculptor Jacques Lipchitz.
Fry said, “I stayed because the refugees needed me. But it
took courage, and courage is a quality that I hadn't previously
been sure I possessed.”
9
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
In 1991, 50 years after his courageous actions in France
saved thousands of innocent lives and 24 years after his
death, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council awarded
the Eisenhower Liberation Medal to Varian Fry.
In 1994, he was also honored by Yad Vashem as a “Righteous
Among the Nations” — the first American recipient of Israel’s
highest honor for rescuers during the Holocaust.
10
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Waitstill Sharp was a minister in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and
his wife Martha a noted social worker. In 1939, the Sharps
accepted an invitation by the Unitarian Service Committee to
help members of the Unitarian church in Czechoslovakia,
leaving their own children in the care of others.
11
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Arriving in Prague, the Sharps aided a number of Jews to
leave the country, which had come under Nazi control. They
continued their charitable work until August 1939, leaving
Prague when warned of their possible arrest by the Gestapo.
In June 1940, the Sharps landed in Lisbon, Portugal, to
continue helping refugees from war-torn France. Making their
way into Vichy-controlled France, they sought ways to help
fugitives from Nazi terror, Jews and non-Jews alike.
12
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCEThe Sharps’ activities included registering refugees, bringing
applicants to the attention of embassies, finding the
scholarships or employment necessary for emigration,
securing releases from prisons, and arranging travel to safer
destinations in London, Paris, or Geneva. They faced
enormous bureaucratic hurdles at every step.
Martha Sharp was the first woman from the United States to
be so honored by the “Righteous Among the Nations.” The
Sharps were the second and third U.S. citizens, after Fry, to
receive this title in 2006.
13
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
In 1941, twenty-six year old Lois Gunden,
an American French teacher from Goshen,
Indiana, came to work with the Mennonite
Central Committee in southern France. Far
from her home, she would become the
rescuer of children of a different nationality,
religion and background.
14
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCEGunden went to France to serve with the Mennonite Central
Committee. She joined the Secours Mennonite aux Enfants in
Lyon and was sent to establish a children’s home in Canet
Plage, located on the Mediterranean Sea.
The children’s center became a safe haven for the children of
Spanish refugees as well as for Jewish children, many of
whom were smuggled out of the nearby internment camp of
Rivesaltes. She interceded to save Jewish children, including
reassuring parents that she would take care of them, and
shield them from the Nazis.
15
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCEIn November 1942, the Germans occupied southern France.
Although she was considered an enemy alien after the United
States entered the war, she continued to run the children’s
center.
Two months later, she was detained by the Germans until she
was released in 1944 in a prisoner exchange, later returning
to her home in Indiana.
In 2013, she was recognized by Yad Vashem as “Righteous
Among the Nations.”
16
17
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
In 2015, Yad Vashem posthumously
recognized Master Sergeant Roddie
Edmonds as Righteous Among the
Nations. He is the first American
soldier to be so recognized.
18
Edmonds shipped out in December 1944 with the 106th
Infantry Division. He was captured with thousands of other
soldiers in the Battle of the Bulge.
On Christmas Day, he and the others arrived in Stalag IX-B,
a Prisoner of War (POW) camp known as “Bad Orb” that
housed more than 25,000 soldiers at a time.
Thirty days later, Edmonds and the other noncommissioned
officers were moved to Stalag IX-A with 1,275 other soldiers.
As a Master Sergeant, he was the senior noncommissioned
officer among the men.
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
19
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
The Wehrmacht (German armed forces) had a strict anti-Jew
policy and segregated Jewish POWs from non-Jews. On the
eastern front, captured Jewish soldiers in the Russian army
had been sent to extermination camps.
At the time of Edmonds’ capture, the most infamous Nazi
death camps were no longer fully operational, so Jewish
American POWs were instead sent to slave labor camps
where their chances of survival were low.
20
U.S. soldiers had been warned that Jewish fighters among
them would be in danger if captured and were told to
destroy dog tags or any other evidence identifying them as
Jewish.
On the prisoners’ first day at the camp, the Nazi soldiers
made their order very clear. Jewish American POWs were
to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and report
to morning roll call.
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
21
Edmonds knew what was at stake. Turning to the rest of the
POWs, he said: “We are not doing that, we are all falling out.
Geneva Convention affords only name, rank and serial
number, and so that's what we're going to do. All of us are
falling out.”
The next morning, all 1,275 soldiers stood at attention in
front of their barracks. The German commander turned to
Edmonds and said: “They cannot all be Jews.”
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
22
Then the Nazi officer barked at Edmonds, “I'm commanding
you to have your Jewish men step forward.” Edmonds
refused, and gave him his name, rank, and serial number.
The commander pulled out his pistol and pressed it into
Edmonds' forehead. “You will have your Jewish men step
forward or I will shoot you on the spot.”
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
23
Edmonds replied: “We are all
Jews here. If you are going to
shoot, you are going to have to
shoot all of us because we know
who you are and you’ll be tried
for war crimes when we win this
war.”
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Edmonds’ choice and action set an example for 1,275 soldiers
as they stood united against the barbaric evil of the Nazis.
Over 200 Jewish American soldiers were saved that day.
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Our modern military was forged
in the fight against Nazi tyranny.
To defeat Hitler we mobilized all
of the strength that we could
muster, and in that effort we
witnessed many of our finest
hours as a military and indeed,
as a country.
24
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Today we carry forward the proud
legacy of men and women of the United
States Army who played a
vital role in liberating the camps at
Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau,
Flossenbürg, Dachau, and Mauthausen.
American forces not only brought freedom to the survivors of
Nazi horrors, they also made sure that in its aftermath the
world would know what had happened.
25
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCEIn the days after Allied forces captured the first concentration
camps, Generals Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, and
Omar Bradley themselves inspected the camps, and saw the
horrors that had occurred.
They were, in Eisenhower’s
words, atrocities “beyond the
American mind to comprehend.”
26
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Eisenhower ordered every American soldier in the area who
was not on the front lines to tour these camps, so that they
could themselves see what they were fighting against, and
why they were fighting. These soldiers became not only
liberators, but witnesses to one of the greatest massacres in
history.
27
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
The commitment of our forces to the
survivors of Nazi atrocities did not
end with liberation.
In the aftermath of war, we cared for
survivors and we helped reunite
families. We provided both physical
and spiritual nourishment to the
survivors of the Holocaust.
28
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
Days of Remembrance raises awareness that democratic
institutions and values are not simply sustained,
but need to be appreciated, nurtured, and protected. It also
clearly illustrates the roots and ramifications of prejudice,
racism, and stereotyping in any society.
29
DAYS OF REMEMBRANCE
More importantly, silence and indifference to the suffering of
others, or to the infringement of civil rights in any society,
can—however unintentionally—perpetuate these problems.
30
31
“Let us not forget, after all, there
is always a moment when moral
choice is made…. And so we
must know these good people
who helped Jews during the
Holocaust. We must learn from
them, and in gratitude and hope,
we must remember them.”
—Elie WieselSurvivor of the Auschwitz, Buna,
Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz
concentration camps
SOURCES
http://www.ushmm.org/
http://virtualjerusalem.com/
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/veteran-
honored-saving-jewish-pow.html
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/index.asp
32
Defense Equal Opportunity
Management Institute,
Patrick Air Force Base, Florida
May 2016
Dawn W. Smith
DEOMI Research Directorate
All photographs are public domain and are from various sources, as
cited.
The findings in this report are not to be construed as an official
DEOMI, U.S. military services, or Department of Defense position,
unless designated by other authorized documents.
33