RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONSONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

WHO IS RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS

Righteous among the Nations is an official title bestowed by Yad Vashem on behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people upon non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust.

KIND OF HELP PROVIDED BY THE RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS

• Hideouts for Jews in their homes or properties.

• Falsification of identity and document forgery.

• Smuggling and escape aid.• Children rescue.

CRITERIA FOR THE RECOGNITION• The recipient saved one or more Jews from death threat or

deportation to death camps.

• The recipient risked their life, freedom or status.

• The recipient was originally driven by the only purpose of helping persecuted Jews and not by any kind of reward.

• The existence of evidence of the action through accounts from the assisted, or unequivocal documents confirming the nature and circumstances of the rescue.

HOW THEY ARE BESTOWEDThe recipients are awarded a specially struck medal and a certificate of honour, as well as the privilege of having their names added to the Wall of Honour in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

The Yad Vashem Law authorises the institution to “confer honorary citizenship upon the Righteous among the Nations, and if they have passed away, the commemorative citizenship of the State of Israel in recognition of their actions”.

GALICIA-SPAIN-FRANCE-POLAND- PORTUGAL

Lola Touza (Galicia)

Ángel Sanz Briz (Spain)

Albert Le Lay (France)

Henryk Slawik (Poland)

Arístides de Sousa Mendes (Portugal)

LOLA, AMPARO and JULIA TOUZA

The Touza sisters lived in the town of Ribadavia (Ourense), the last stop in the Jewish exodus to Portugal. Chased by the Gestapo, the Jews were running away from the nightmare of the “shoah”. Lola and her sisters would wait for them at the station kiosk they were running.

Lola, Amparo and Julia offered food to the Jewish fugitives before organising their escape, “crossing the river Miño in the dark of the night” to Portuguese soil.

Their recognition as “Righteous among the Nations” is underway.

ÁNGEL SANZ BRIZ

Called The Angel of Budapest (Zaragoza 1910, Rome 1980), Ángel Sanz Briz was a Spanish diplomat. In 1942 he was appointed chargé d’affaires at the Spanish embassy in Budapest. When Adolf Eichmann arrived in the city to supervise the extermination of the Hungarian Jews, Briz decided to provide Spanish legal documents to Sephardic Jews and negotiate with the Hungarian authorities their accommodation in a safe place. He managed to save about 5,200 Jews.He was recognised as “Righteous among the Nations” in 1989.

ALBERT LE LAY

Albert Le Lay was French customs chief at Canfranc railway station, in the central Pyrenees in Huesca. He saved “many people’s lives” during World War II until he was discovered by the Gestapo, from which he run away in a most unbelievable way, eventually fleeing aboard a ship. After the end of the war, he refused honours and rewards and communicated to his family his desire to keep his former activities secret. One of his grandchildren broke the deal recently and revealed the major feat his grandfather had achieved.

HENRYK SLAWIKHe was born in the small village of Szeroka (1894). Upon graduating secondary school, he joined the Polish military. After serving time there, he went to the town of Silesia, where he became part of the police force. A member of a right-wing faction of the Polish Socialist Party, he also served as editor of a Socialist newspaper.

In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, Henryk joined a mobilized police battalion that was part of the Krakow Army fighting the Nazis. On September 15, Henryk's battalion retreated toward the Hungarian border. Upon crossing the border, Henryk was placed in a refugee camp and then he was taken to Budapest where he began his work rescuing refugees.

ARÍSTIDES DE SOUSA MENDES (1885-1954)