Why Righteous Gentiles Helped Jews

The story of the Local Charters, specially relating to Bishop Rudiger of Speyer, demonstrates Elukin’s theory of successful integration and relations between Christians and Jews in a local scaled setting. In 1084, a population of Jews departed from Maize because of a fire they feared to be blamed for, and were welcomed by the city of Speyer in Germany. Bishop Rudiger offered the Jews kindnesses such as safety, the right to practice their religion, the right to sell meat and good, and the right to have a legal status. The Jews not only were welcomed into the city, but helped the city thrive economically due to their rights to loan money with interest, rights that Christians do not have. The Jews spoke

What if you were the Jew who were forced to leave their homes and their belongings behind? To work at the point of exhaustion, to wear the same thing year long, to see many people die in front of your own eyes. How would you feel? This is what was plaguing the Jews, during the war because Nazis targeted the Jews’ humanity, and slowly dehumanized them. The Nazis dehumanizing the Jews made them not believe in God plus made them give up hope.

Many heroes worked hard to save Jewish people during the Holocaust, a genocide of anti-semitism, and their stories live on in the people who they saved. In September 1943, Bishop Giuseppe Nicolini received a letter from the Pope in Vatican that told him that the church should organize help for all refugees, especially the Jewish people and the Assisi Network was born. The “Assisi Network” began as a refugee camp with help from the surrounding Church community, but soon evolved into a huge organized operation. The people who risked their lives to run the Assisi Network helped to save hundreds of people and fought to hide Jews who would have otherwise been prosecuted. The story of the Assisi Network preserves the legacy of the Holocaust by using

Oskar Schindler grew up in a prosperous Catholic family with all the privileges money could buy. He grew up to be a German industrialist, spy, and a member of the Nazi Party, who outwitted Hitler and the Nazis to save more Jews than any other from the deathly events of World War॥. With the help of his wife, Emilie Schindler, Oskar Schindler saved the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his ammunition and enamelware factories, spending millions bribing the SS, and eventually risking his life to rescue the Schindler-Jews (“The Oscar Schindler Story”)

The Righteous Gentiles, also known as the Righteous among the Nation were people who stood out among the rest in the attempt to save the Jews and other victims of the holocaust. Although these people are recognized today as heroes for helping the Jews, how effective were the Righteous Gentiles in actually saving their lives? During the time of the Holocaust the Righteous among the Nation tried to stand up for what was right, through small or extreme actions. In doing so they accepted the consequences of getting thrown into a camp or of being executed if they were caught helping. They took it upon themselves to save people who at heart were just like them. Throughout the investigation, I will attempt to discover if the Righteous Gentiles actually made a difference in the amount of lives lost. To find an accurate answer, information regarding the Righteous Gentiles will be gathered and analyzed. Sources such as survival stories and rescue stories will be looked at. Some of these stories include the story of Mallgorzata and her children, and the story of Bartali. Along with these stories I will watch the movie Schindler’s List to further my understanding on the Righteous among the Nation. This information will then be analyzed and compared to sufficiently support evidence for the research question.

When many think of the Holocaust as a solely negative experience, and while it may seem easy to write the event off as a dark time in history that seems remote and unlikely to affect us today, there are some positive results, including the lessons that it brings for current and future humanity. The lessons that the Holocaust brings are applicable to every person in the world. While many of these lessons do focus on the negative aspects of the Holocaust, like what circumstances permit such a vast genocide and how many people can die because of widespread racial hatred, there are also those that focus on how some people, in all parts of Europe and throughout the world, retained their good human nature during the Holocaust. For example, what made some gentiles in Europe during that time willing and able to help Jews. Currently, Yad Vashem has recognized 26,513 rescuers throughout the world (Names), and the actual number of rescuers could likely be close to twice that amount (Baron,1). It is important that we analyze the reasons behind these rescuers’ choices to be upstanders instead of bystanders because we can learn about our own motivations when we face decisions between helping others and protecting ourselves, and possibly those we love, from harm. Fulfilling one’s self-interest was a potential motivation for helping Jews that will only be briefly addressed. This type of rescue potentially benefitted both the Jews and the Gentile rescuers; these Gentiles only helped Jews survive because they found personal gain, likely social or economic, in the action (Baron). However, in the situation that existed while rescuing the Jews, most efforts included the high possibility that both the rescuer and the rescued would end up worse off than they had begun with no potential for personal gain on either side. So those rescuers’ motivations are less easily explainable.

Over six million people died in the Holocaust. Family, friends, and other people with the same ethnicity that they didn't even know were killed left and right. From the crematory to getting hung. Was it best for them to help each other or was it to protect themselves and not care about anyone else? (Prompt 5)

Since the beginning of the Judaism, the Jewish people have been subject to hardships and discrimination. They have not been allowed to have a stabile place of worship and have also faced persecution and atrocities that most of us can not even imagine. Three events that have had a big impact on the Jewish faith were the building and destruction of the First Great Temple, the Second Great Temple and the events of the Holocaust. In this paper, I will discuss these three events and also explain and give examples as to why I feel that the Jewish people have always been discriminated against and not allowed the freedom of worship.

these people with their lives and the lives of their loved ones, the Jews were “persuaded”

Since the start of the Nazi occupation in Europe, Jewish communities and individuals were struggling with survival, and fought for their existence. Many Jews tried to evade or overcome the degrading Nazi decrees, that stripped them of civil and human rights, triggered isolation and denied them a livelihood. The Nazis simply wanted to create a condition in which no human being, particularly Jewish, can live or even exist. For a long time, the Jews’ view on the sanctity of life, a duty to protect one’s life, encouraged them to endure the period of intense pain and suffering. From past experience, the Jews thought that the terrible events of the Nazis would pass, the same as the pogroms. Over a period of centuries, from the Crusades to the

It is a widely held belief that the Church did not aid Hitler’s regime and were innocent bystanders. Others say that the Church indirectly contributed to Hitler’s agenda with their anti-Jewish doctrines. The Jews, however, were not only victimized by Nazis but also Christians. Christian authorities’ reactions to the Holocaust and how they reacted to accusations of blame are very vague. This topic is important because it explores how the people of a major religion abandoned the most basic teachings and morals of that religion. Christianity’s and Pope Pius’ role in the Holocaust still remains to this day remains very controversial.

helped so many Jewish people. Schindler definitely was not a man of many morals, but his

During the Nazi German era, which took place from 1933 until 1945, Christianity played a very important role in the rise of Hitler’s regime. The Christian churches greatly influenced not only the formation of the Nazi regime, but also the German folk. The most influential churches were the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church. Even though Christianity itself faced a state of decline in the early 1930s, the higher clergy of the Christian churches in Germany still managed to make a significant impact. The amount of influence that the churches exerted can be measured not only through the impact of their resistance towards the Nazis, but conversely through the resistance carried out by

He saved over one thousand Jewish people from going to labor or death camps. He risked his life for people he has never even met. Schindler received word that a train of evacuated Jews from Golezow camp was stranded in the nearby city of Svitavy. As he has done twice before, Schindler pulled some strings at the top and got permission from German officials to take his workers to the nearby station to rescue the stranded. Once at the station, they forced the doors open to the rail car and saved about one hundred half frozen Jews and did their best to nurse the ill back to health, and those who did not survive received a proper Jewish burial.

[War] brings out the worst in people. Never the good, always the bad. Even in the midst the devastation of a national genocide, where one race turned against another in hate, good people existed and worked to counteract the hate through love and compassion. Oskar Schindler was one of these people. World War II provided him the means to become a very wealthy and powerful man, yet he did not exploit the Jews like many other businessmen during his time. He used his money and power to save thousands. Much can be learned from what happened during the holocaust and what Schindler did to save thousands of Jews.