Silent Heroes

• Think about the terms “help” and rescue.”  What is the difference between these two terms?  In the context of the Holocaust, how do you understand the difference between these two terms?  Can you think of a specific time when help was needed rather than rescue, and of times when Jews needed to be rescued?  Would you characterize those individuals who helped Jews as heroes?  Why or why not? (Echoes and Reflections)

I think help and rescue are different because helping someone is just you doing them a favor; for example helping someone carry in their groceries. Rescue is a totally different thing, when you rescue someone you are saving their life. In the article Rescuing Jews it said that many individuals helped Jews hide by hiding them in attics, barns, sheds etc. Oskar Schindler was one of many who helped Jews in any way possible. He opened up a factory in Krakow, using Polish Jews as secret investors; Oskar Schindler  was dedicated to help Jews escape the gas chambers. In another article called Courage, a woman named Irena Sendler became apart of the Zegota in September 1942. The Zegota was a group of Polish citizens who helped rescue Jewish children and hid them with non-Jewish families. Irena Sendler would smuggle them out of the Ghetto, sometimes using a church which was half in the Ghetto and half on the Christian side of Warsaw. Children would enter as Jews but leave as ¨Christians¨. Although Irena was caught and brutally beaten by the Germans, she never gave any information about the Zegota. I think all who were a part of saving Jews are heroes because they saved lives even though they knew that there was a great chance of them getting caught. Those people stood up to the Nazis when the Jews were too weak to fight back.