The many stories of those that secretly worked to save lots of Jewish lives and resist the Nazis in WWII are deeply fascinating and moving. They were often driven by a deep faith that God was protecting and helping them of their work.
Amid the deep darkness of World War II, there are lots of shining lights of courage, love and determination who opposed the Nazis and sought to guard and conceal Jewish people from destruction. There were no less than 28,000 lights actually, who Yad Vashem would later award the title of “Righteous among the many nations” as a result of evidence of their loving actions.
Many were Christian, a small number now famous, but most of those great heroes are little known today.
Here are a few of these heroes and the religion that inspired them:
Corrie ten Boom
One of the most effective known of the Christian Holocaust rescuers, Corrie and her devout family lived in Haarlem in Holland, quietly doing good works. When the Nazis invaded, they were horrified. Corrie’s father, Casper, had a transparent theology in regards to the horrific attacks on the Jewish people they began to witness with their very own eyes: “I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God’s eye.” The family’s response was to welcome Jews into their home and create a “hiding place” of their attic in case of raids, which became the title of her famous book and a film in regards to the events.
Sadly in the future the Gestapo arrived, and your complete family was arrested. Most died in captivity though they’d still encourage and share their faith with their fellow inmates. Corrie survived the war, writing and speaking movingly of her sister Betsie’s death within the diabolical Ravensbruck camp where they were imprisoned. Corrie recorded her sister’s famous quote, all of the more poignant for the hellish place she was in: “There isn’t any pit so deep, that God’s love will not be deeper still.”
Monsignor Jules-Géraud Saliège
Monsignor Saliège, the Archbishop of Toulouse during wartime, was horrified by the actions of the Nazis he witnessed throughout him. When non-French Jews began to be rounded up and sent away, he ordered a pastoral letter to be read in every pulpit on August 23, 1942, describing the “dreadful sight” of the deportations: “The Jews are men, the Jewesses are women. The foreigners are men and girls. One cannot do anything one wishes to those men, to those women, to those fathers and moms. They are a part of the human race; they’re our brothers like so many others. A Christian cannot forget this.”
Though the Nazi-collaborating authorities tried to forbid the reading of the letter and demanded a retraction, the “Saliège bomb,” because the letter became known, had a robust reach. It can be published much wider than the diocese, and emboldened many other bishops, priests, religious and resistance fighters to work against the evil plans of the Nazis.
Ivan & Serafima Yatsyuk
David Prital (previously Prinzental) had been hiding in a Polish household but like lots of his fellow Jews he was forced to search out a recent place of refuge. He was guided to the house of Ivan Yatsyuk, a peasant in a Baptist community that had a specific love for the Jewish people. On his arrival, the situation was understood immediately. Ivan said to his wife: “God brought a vital guest to our house. We should thank God for this blessing,” as told by historian Sir Martin Gilbert in his great book celebrating the rescuers: “The Righteous: the unsung heroes of the Holocaust”.
Prital was astounded by his welcome: “They kneeled down and I heard a beautiful prayer coming out of their pure and easy hearts, not written in a single prayer book…. Was it a dream? Was it possible that such people still existed on this world?”
Before their first meal together, the couple read a chapter of the Bible. “This is the massive secret,” thought Prital. “It is that this everlasting book that raised their morality to such unbelievable heights. It is that this very book that filled their hearts with love for the Jews.” He would survive the war.
Saveliy & Oksana Mironiuk
Another Baptist couple, the Mironiuks (or Mironyuks), lived in the identical region and were asked by the Yatsyuks to shelter Prital and other Jewish people at various different times. In late 1943, when a young Jew in hiding, Ignacy Shats, was within the Mironyuks’ home, German soldiers and Ukrainian policemen began to conduct searches within the village. Realising there was no time to cover, the Mironiuks “fell on their knees and commenced to wish” in keeping with the web site of Yad Vashem, the international Holocaust Remembrance organisation. “The Germans, who conducted the search, missed their home and Shats was saved. The Mironyuks and all the opposite Baptists of their community saw this as a miracle and for a few years afterwards members of the community told the story.” Shats would survive the war.
Father Marie-Benoît and Fernande Leboucher
Father Marie-Benoît faithfully forged identity papers, issued baptismal certificates, and arranged hiding and escape for the numerous Jewish individuals who sought his aid – in all he saved 4,000 lives.
He told a distressed Mdme Leboucher whose Jewish husband was held in a camp to wish, as God loved the Jewish race. It was good advice, and the start of an astonishing adventure, as they worked together to assist as many Jews as they might.
The woman’s recent faith was bolstered when undergoing a terrifying ordeal. While hiding six Jewish refugees in her home, the apartment block was subject to a random search by the Gestapo. Her guests urged her to show them in, so she could avoid a fate worse than death for hiding them. Instead, she decided to wish: “Fr Benoît, I’m calling you thru heaven, as you told me to do. Help me now!” as recounted in her memoir of her experiences.
The terrified group waited quietly as they heard heavy boots tramping up and down the staircase outside, as the opposite apartments were searched. Inexplicably, their flat remained unmolested. This apparent miracle emboldened Mdme Leboucher in her mission: “Since that day, an almost supernatural strength was inside me. The more dangerous the mission, the more exciting I discovered it … I might hear an interior voice saying, ‘Go. Don’t be afraid.'” She would never doubt the existence of a great God from that time onwards.
Reverend Otto Mörike
Rev Otto, like many other members of the Confessing Church in Germany, was outspoken in his opposition to the Nazis. For publicly criticising the federal government, he was beaten by a mob and deprived of ministerial positions. He spoke boldly of the judgement that may fall on Germany in consequence of their actions: “Aggression against the church and the Christian faith in addition to the abolishment of justice and morality are the start of a trend that can earn the condemnation by God and due to this fact the destruction of our country.”
He earned the title of “Righteous among the many Nations” for hiding a Jewish couple in his house, and finding them other places to remain.
Wilm Hosenfeld
Probably one of the vital difficult awards of the ‘Righteous among the many Nations’ title was that of this German soldier and member of the Nazi Party in 2008. But Hosenfeld’s actions in helping quite a lot of Jews – most famously, musician Władysław Szpilman as portrayed within the film The Pianist – grew out of his deep personal faith and his growing horror on the Nazi violence that he saw throughout him.
He wrote on September 1, 1942: “Because humanity needed to be shown where its godlessness was taking it … This denial of God’s commandments leads us to all the opposite immoral manifestations of greed: unjust self-enrichment, hatred, deceit and sexual license leading to infertility and the downfall of the German people. God allows all this to occur … to indicate mankind that without him we’re only animals in conflict, who imagine now we have to destroy one another. We is not going to hearken to the divine commandment: ‘Love each other’… and must die, guilty and innocent alike.”
He had observed atrocities against the Jewish people first-hand, and would write home: “With horrible mass murder of the Jews, now we have lost this war. We have brought an everlasting curse upon ourselves and will likely be perpetually covered with shame. We haven’t any right for compassion or mercy; all of us have a share within the guilt. I’m ashamed to walk in the town.”
This is only a small variety of the faithful who worked to save lots of innocents during WWII, inspired and strengthened by the love and power of God.
Heather Tomlinson is a contract Christian author. Find more of her work at https://heathertomlinson.substack.com/ or via X (twitter) @heathertomli
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