// Nazis Who Saved Jews During the Holocaust: We Salute Their Humanity and Heroism

You are here:

Home
HEROES
// Nazis Who Saved Jews…

Silhouette,Of,Helping,Hand,Concept,And,International,Day,Of,Peace.thank

Thanks to the 1993 epic movie Schindler’s List, we know the story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish–Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II [Wikipedia]. What most people don’t know is that Schindler wasn’t the only Nazi to save Jews during World War II. Although their number was infinitesimally small, their humanity and bravery — they risked death to rescue Jews — are forever awe-inspiring. We remember and honor the three Nazis linked below.

Learn more about the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust from Wikipedia. ►

Read “Nazi official [Helmut Kleinicke, pictured] who risked [his] life to save hundreds of Jews posthumously recognized | The Times of Israel” ►

Read “The Nazi Officer [Dr. Albert Battel] Who Saved 100 Jewish Families | AISH.com ” ►

Read ” The Nazi [Karl Rudolf Werner Best] Who Saved Jews | The Forward” ►

Photo: Shutterstock — for illustration purposes only.

We welcome your comments. Click here .

Notable &
Quotable

“[T]he foundations for extremism usually are held in check by various restraints. Societies are not liberal, moderate, progressive, and free because almost all their citizens – let alone their politicians — are liberal, moderate, progressive or committed to the freedoms of others.

“But societies consistently avoid extremism when the infrastructures of freedom are strong: when key institutions and norms encourage a more decent, rights-respective, lawful politics; when powerful social movements and independent media hold leaders to account, expose rather than reinforce political fantasies, and champion the rights of the vulnerable; and when information is produced and scrutinized by scholars, civil servants, and non-governmental organizations devoid of either government repression or vested interests.

“Yet no infrastructure is rigidly immovable, and once key components are eroded and weakened, once sections of the political and cultural elite attempt to mobilize the foundations of extremism, the system of restraints can swiftly collapse.

“While genocide on the scale of the Holocaust is historically exceptional, its central lesson is that the broader danger of extreme atrocities is not. In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw, the Holocaust ‘lit a warning beacon that still burns brightly: it showed how a modern, advanced, cultured society can so rapidly sink into barbarity… It showed what we are capable of.’ Only by rejecting false narratives of conflict and polarization, and maintaining systems of rights and freedoms for all, can we hope to prevent that capability from once more becoming a reality.”

— Jonathan Leader Maynard in his incisive article “Could It Happen Here?: The Holocaust and Atrocities in the 21st Century” To read the entire article, click here.