Jews who risked their lives saving fellow Jews during the years of World War II were honored at a Yom Hashoah ceremony on Tuesday in Jerusalem, as speakers drew connections between the Holocaust and Oct. 7 heroism.
The annual event, held by the B’nai B’rith World Center and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, is “the only Yom Hashoah event dedicated annually to commemorating the heroism of Jews who endangered their own lives to rescue fellow Jews during the Holocaust,” according to organizers.
The Jewish Rescuers Citation was posthumously awarded to four individuals, including Shoshana Jansje Litten Serlui of the Netherlands, who worked with the underground movement led by Johan (“Joop”) and Wilhelmina Dora Westerweel to rescue Youth Aliyah trainees by securing forged documents, food rations and hiding places. Johan Westerweel was executed by the Nazis in August 1944. Wilhelmina Westerweel was arrested, spent time in concentration camps, but was returned to Holland after the war as part of a prisoner exchange.
Ellen-Ellie Waterman, also from the Netherlands, forged identity papers and found safe houses for Jewish youths in hiding. She maintained rescue networks despite repeated arrests of fellow underground operatives.
Simha Kazik Rotem of Poland, a key figure in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, used his Aryan appearance and access to smuggling routes through the sewers to move between the ghetto and the outside world. He helped rescue dozens of fighters during the uprising and later secured weapons for the Jewish underground.
The fourth honoree, Paul Giniewski, operated in France as part of a Zionist youth underground, distributing forged documents hidden in schoolbooks and coordinating with local officials to aid Jews in hiding. Despite arrests and injury, he continued his rescue work throughout the war, later becoming a journalist.
The citation “has recognized 667 heroes since its inception in 2011 in an effort to help correct the generally held misconception that Jews failed to come to the aid of fellow Jews during the Holocaust,” organizers said.
Speakers included Marriet Schuurman, the Netherlands ambassador in Israel; Eyal Ostrinsky, chairman of the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund; Haim Katz, chairman of World B’nai B’rith; and Moshe Shapira, whose 22-year-old son died while defending fleeing Nova Music Festival participants as they huddled together in a roadside bomb shelter during Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
At the ceremony, Shapira said his grandfather, Moshe Chaim Shapira, defied the Nazi regime by opening the Jewish Agency offices in Austria, where he “succeeded in saving 2,000 Jews.”
“My son Aner, who was born on the same date as my grandfather, arrived on Oct. 7 at the Re’im forest to celebrate with friends,” he said in Hebrew. “When the attack began, he contacted his commander and set out for his base. On the way, he and others took shelter. According to survivors, Aner was the last to enter the shelter. There were 27 people inside. He calmed them, and realizing that they did not know what to do, declared that he would defend them.”
Shapira described how his son tossed eight separate grenades out of the shelter and back at the terrorists who threw them.
“Ten people are alive today because of him,” stated his father.
