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Righteous Among The Nations of non-European nationalities (The Americas, Asia & Africa)

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Profiles

  • Mima Saïna (deceased)
    Mima Saina was a housekeeper of Indonesian origin at the house of Tore Manda. During the Holocaust they sheltered a Jewish child who was returned to his mother after the liberation of Holland from the ...
  • Tolé Madna (1898 - 1992)
    Tolé Madna (5 December 1898 – 9 January 1992) was an Indonesian who, during World War II, sheltered and protected a Jewish child while living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. On 12 January 2003, Yad V...
  • Sergei Metreveli (1906 - 1991)
    Sergei Metreveli (10 November 1906 – 1 October 1991) was a Georgian who was honored as being Righteous Among the Nations for saving the lives of six people, including two Jews, during the Holocaust. He...
  • José Gambetta Bonatti (deceased)
    José Gambetta , the third Peruvian Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews during World War II SILENT HERO The son of Italian immigrants, born in Callao and a relative of the well-known soldier,...
  • Asmik Mkhikyan (1925 - d.)
    Grigori and Pran Tashchiyan, and their children Asmik and Tigran Tashchiyan Grigori and Pran Tashchiyan lived in Turkey, where they survived the Armenian genocide during World War I. Pran’s first hus...

Righteous Among The Nations - Yad Vashem

"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 Wiesel

in the photo: Righteous Among the Nations medal

In 1963 Yad Vashem embarked upon a worldwide project to pay tribute to the Righteous Among the Nations who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. This represents a unique and unprecedented attempt by the victims to honour individuals from within the nations of perpetrators, collaborators and bystanders, who stood by the victims' side and acted in stark contrast to the mainstream of indifference and hostility that prevailed in the darkest time of history.

As of January 1, 2022 there were 28,217 individuals recognised as The Righteous Among The Nations.

THE AMERICAS

BRAZIL

  • Aracy Carvalho de Guimaraes Rosa (1908 – 2011) Secretary for the visa section in the Brazilian Consulate in Hamburg, Germany 1938-1942.
  • Luiz Martins de Souza Dantas (1876 – 1954) Brazilian diplomat in Paris, France during WWII who issued immigration visas thus helping Jews and non-Jews to escape the Holocaust. It is estimated he saved 800 people, 425 confirmed to be Jewish.

CHILE

  • Samuel del Campo Candia (1882 – 1960) in 1941, he worked as the chargé d'affaires for Chile in Bucharest, Romania who then allied with the Axis powers and took an active part in the Holocaust. At that time the representation of Polish citizens was transferred to Chile. Del Campo issued Chilean passports to Polish Jews, saving them from deportation. Yad Vashem estimates that Del Campo rescued approximately 1,200 Jews by giving them passports, despite the Chilean government's official non-interference policy.
  • Errazuriz, Maria (Edwards) Mac-Clure (1893 – 1972) was a Chilean social worker and Catholic nurse. During the Holocaust she helped to save Jewish children in France. She also actively helped the French resistance.

CUBA

  • Ámparo de Los Remedios Otero de Pappo (1896–1987) During the Second World War years, she sheltered her late husband's family – mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, nephews and niece – and a teenage Jewish refugee named Liliane Frangi from arrest and potential deportation to the Nazi death camps.

ECUADOR

  • Manuel Muñoz Borrero (1891 – 1976) was an Ecuadorian diplomat who issued approximately 100 Ecuadorian passports to save Jews during the Holocaust. He is the only Ecuadorian to be recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous among the Nations.

EL SAVADOR

  • Jose Arturo Castellanos (1893 — 1977) was a Salvadoran army colonel and diplomat who, while working as El Salvador's Consul General for Geneva during World War II, and in conjunction with a Jewish-Hungarian businessman named György Mandl, helped save up to 40,000 Jews and Central Europeans from Nazi persecution by providing them with false papers of Salvadoran nationality.

PERU

  • Barreto, Jose Maria (1875 — 1948) was a Peruvian diplomat in Switzerland who is best known for issuing passports to save Jews during World War II.
  • Gambetta, Jose () was a Peruvian diplomat in Warsaw and then in Bucharest who is best known for issuing passports to save Jews during World War II.
  • Isabel (Zuzunaga) Weill (1890 — 1984) sheltered in her home in Limoges (France) during the Nazi occupation (1941-1944)' her Jewish husband Robert and a young Jewish boy Jack Szarfscher.

USA

  • Varian Mackey Fry (1907 – 1967) was an American journalist. Fry ran a rescue network in Vichy France that helped 2,000 to 4,000 anti-Nazi and Jewish refugees to escape Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He was the first of five Americans to be recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations".
  • Waitstill Sharp (1902 – 1984) & Martha Alice Sharp-Cogan (Ingham Dickie) (1905 – 1999). Martha Sharp and her husband, Waitstill arrived in 1938 in Prague, the location of the largest Unitarian church in the world, with $28,000 in aid for refugees. The church had created a network of volunteers and agencies to provide for the safe passage of Jews and non-Jews out of Prague. The Nazis entered Prague in 1939 creating a dangerous situation for Reverend Sharp and his wife Martha who risked arrest and execution for their work. In June 1940 the Sharps set up an office in Lisbon, Portugal to continue their refugee work. They travelled to Nazi controlled France to assist refugees escape.
  • Lois Gunden (1915 – 2005) She helped establish an orphanage and rescue mission for children in Southern France during World War II. She rescued some children directly from Camp de Rivesaltes, an internment camp. Gunden remained in France after having been considered an enemy alien. The Germans arrested her in early 1943 and treated her like a diplomat until early 1944. She was held in hotels until a prisoner exchange allowed for her release.
  • Roddie Edmonds (1919 – 1985) was a master sergeant of the 106th Infantry Division, 422nd Infantry Regiment in the United States Army during World War II, who was captured and became the ranking U.S. non-commissioned officer at the Stalag IX-A prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, where—at the risk of his life—he saved an estimated 200–300 Jews from being singled out from the camp for Nazi persecution and possible death.

ASIA

ARMENIA

  • Agopyan, Ashkhen, אשקהן סרקיסובנה אגופיאן, Ашхен Саркисовна Агопьян (1986 - 1907) was of Armenian origin, who saved Olga, Dina and Mania Rabinovitch in Nazi occupied Odessa in Crimea in the Holocaust.
  • Bagdasarian, Peruza & son Sarkis hid, supported and fed the Jewish family of Khasin - Josef and Shura-Rivka and their two children, Rosa and Avraham, in Nazi occupied Odessa then USSR, on and off from 1941 until liberation in 1994. Peruza and Sarkis refused any recognition honors of their good deeds during their life-time and were recgnised as Righteous Among the Nations post hummosly.
  • Beurkdjian, Yervante () & Elbis (). In 1942, during the Jews roundups in Nazi occupied Paris, Yervante & Elbis Beurkdjian invited Joseph and Hélène Goldhamer, a couple of Polish Jews who were in mortal danger to move in with their family while their son stood watch in the street to warn them if the police showed up. The Goldhamers remained with the six-member Beurkdjian family for eight months. Though they were not wealthy, and their apartment was small, the Beurkdjians gave the Goldhamers a room of their own and refused payment for room and board.
  • Dilsizian, Georges (died 1946) & son Andre-Gustave Dilsizian (died 1971) Georges Dilsizian fled to France in the end of the 19th Century because of the Turkish persecution of the Armenians. He got married and had thirteen children. His son André married Lea Albohair, whose Jewish family had immigrated to France from Turkey. In 1942 the couple had a daughter, Liliane. During the German occupation of France, Georges Dilsizian and his son André-Gustave hid Lea's relatives – members of the Leon and Savi families.
  • Hougassian, Albert & Makrouhi; dau. Berthe. The Hougassians, of Armenian origin, hid the Tancmans (Tantzmans), Jews of Polish origin - with their daughter Paulette, in their home in Lyons from early 1942 till the liberation in September 1944. The Hougassians wholeheartedly sheltered the Jewish family who had come into their lives unannounced. They shared their food and their small apartment together with the Hougassian’s daughter, Berthe, and twelve-year-old son, Raymond. Albert also supplied them with false papers. They hid their rescue action from friends and acquaintances and assumed great risk in so doing.
  • Jeretzian, Ara György (1918 - 2010) born into an Armenian family in Istanbul who immigrated to Hungary. In 1944, Jeretzian was appointed commander of civilian defense in Budapest’s sixth quarter. He used his position to save as many Jews as possible. He organized a clinic in a house that was under the protection of the Swedish embassy. Some forty Jewish doctors, holding forged Aryan documents supplied by Jeretzian, were employed at the clinic and lived there with their families. Jeretzian covered clinic costs out of his own pocket, and protected the lives of 400 Jews, in addition to doctors, until the liberation.
  • Khachatryan, Harutyun () POW camp, Belarus: Harutyun Khachatryan protected fellow prisoner Iosip Kogan and forged his name and nationality on his ID - thus saved him from being killed as a POW Jew.
  • Kisheshyan, Arut & Zagoruiko Natalia; daughter Almaza. On December 1941, under NAZI occupation of Kharkov (USSR), Reiza Krasova, a Jewish woman and her 2 sons: Vadim & Yakov fled from a NAZI forced labor camp (tractor factory) and were warmly accepted by the Kisheshyans who sheltered them until late spring 1942.
  • Mkrtchyan, Vartan; mother Arakel. On December 14, 1941, in NAZI occupied Kharkov, Vartan - then a young boy aged ca 15, helped his Jewish friend Josef Taraszinsky hide from the Nazi Death Squad who on that day gathered a large group of Jewish refugees to be executed. Vartan's large Armenian family received Taraszinsky warmly, but only Vartan’s mother, Arakel, and cousin Knarik Shakhbazian were told about his real identity. Some time later, Vartan arranged false papers for his ward. Taraszinsky remained under the roof of the Armenian family until February 1943, when the city was first liberated by the Red Army. The two youngsters, Taraszinsky and Vartan joined the Red Army, and Vartan fell in combat. When Taraszinsky completed his military service in 1948, he returned to Kharkov, and married Knarik Shakhbazian.
  • Shakhbazyan, Knarik and her large Armenian family sheltered in Nazi occupied Kharkv in 1941, a Jewish young boy Josef Taraszinsky (aged 15). Only his friend Vartan Mkrtchyan, Varta's mother Arakel and Knarik knew about the real identity of Joseph. when the city was first liberated by the Red Army, Taraszinsky and Vartan joined the Red Army. Vartan fell in combat. When Taraszinsky completed his military service in 1948, he returned to Kharkov, and married Knarik Shakhbazian.
  • Aram Taschdjian and Felicia Taschdjian Sheltered Valentin Skidelsky, a Jewish scholar from the Soviet Union residing in Austria before the Anschluss, in their home in Vienna. What began with providing moral support and connections, turned into giving temporary shelter for a fortnight, and finally became the hiding – day after day for three years – of a persecuted Jew.
  • Tashchyan, Grigori & Pran; children: Asmik & Tigran. During the NAZI occupation of Crimea in WWII (1941-1944), the Tashchyans sheltered their Russian neighbor Eugenia whose husband was Jewish (David Goldberg, a Red Army recruit during the war) and their half-Jewish children Anatoly (born 1935) and Rita (born 1938). The couple’s two children Tigran (born 1929) and Asmik (born 1925) were on the outlook, and would warn Anatoliy and Rita when Germans were coming near. They survived in this manner until the city was liberated on April 13, 1944. After then, Anatoly and Rita were reunited with their parents.

CHINA

  • Ho Feng-Shan (1901 – 1997) Chinese Consul General to Austria, saved tens of thousands of Jews with fake diplomatic passes.
  • Jun Shun-Pan (1889 – 1974) Chinese born Russian citizen, in Kharkov (then Soviet Union).

GEORGIA

  • Metreveli, Sergei (1908 – 1991) was a Georgian who was honored as being Righteous Among the Nations for saving the lives of six people, including two Jews, during the Holocaust. He is currently the only Georgian to have been recognized as such by Yad Vashem.

INDONESIA

  • Madna, Tole (1898 – 1992) was an Indonesian who, during World War II, sheltered and protected a Jewish child while living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.
  • Saina, Mima (died 1945) was an Indonesian housekeeper of Tole Manda who, during World War II, sheltered and protected a Jewish child while living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands.

JAPAN

  • Chiune Sugihara, 杉原 千畝 (1900 - 1986) Vice Consul for the Japanese Empire in Lithuania. During World War II, he helped several thousand Jews leave the country by issuing them transit visas to travel to Japan.

VIETNAM

  • Paul Nguyen Cong Anh Vietnamese born French citizen, in Nice, France. In 1943 Paul Nguyen managed to hide his Jewish wife, her relatives: uncle, aunt, and their baby. He somehow managed to get false papers and in November 1943 with help of a smuggler moved them to Switzerland.

TURKEY

  • Selâhattin Ülkümen (1914 – 2003) was a Turkish diplomat and consul in Rhodes during the Second World War, who assisted many local Jews to escape the Holocaust.

AFRICA

EGYPT

  • Dr. Mohamed (Mod) Helmy (1901 – 1982) was an Egyptian medical doctor who saved several Jews from Nazi persecution in Berlin during the Holocaust. He has been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the first Arab to be recognized as such.