I have many comments.
Flaglady47: when it came to distracting German soldiers from their killing, I’m afraid it often took a little more than "a little wink here, a little batting of the eyelids there." Rescuer Irene Gut Opdyke has written a gripping autobiography entitled "In My Hands" that tells how she saved a lot of Jewish people by, among other things, having an affair with a German officer.
William of Orange: Congratulations on having your grandfather recognized by Yad Vashem, or, rather congratulations on having a grandfather who did such great stuff!
Chukcha: death was the standard punishment across Eastern and Western Europe for the crime of "Jüdenhulp" but it seems to have been enforced more strictly in Eastern Europe. (Not that it wasn’t enforced elsewhere!)
Dervish: Actually, it was five days. Not until after the Germans firebombed Rotterdam and the homes, buildings, and factories on over three hundred streets were destroyed.
A. Pole: First of all, honoring someone as being one of the "righteous among the nations" does not have anything to religion, it has to do with nationality. I think what you objection is based on is the even-more frequently used designation "righteous gentile." I have never much liked that expression because it arises out of a Jewish worldview in which the people can be divided up between Jews and non-Jews (gentiles). To then create a designation, "righteous gentile" does kind of give the impression that gentiles are not, as a general rule, righteous.
Then again, when you look at any large group of people, religious or non-religious, you will always find that most of them are not particularly righteous. Truly righteous people, such as those who are willing to risk their lives for the cause of justice, are always rare. Actually, what I think Yad Vashem was thinking is that Jews should not be specially honored for helping their own people because it is expected that they would help their own people.
Naturally, some people disagree with that position. I know one Dutch rescuer named Pieter Meerburg who tells of some amazing Jewish Holocaust rescuers—Walter Süskind, a German Jew, saved perhaps a thousand Jewish people in Holland by helping to smuggle them out of a detention center. Yad Vashem has never honored Süskind because he is Jewish.
Which gets on the subject of righteous Jews. A. Pole, your remark sounded blatantly anti-Semitic, but nevertheless, I will answer your question. Righteous Jews? Yes, there were many besides Walter Süskind—there was another fellow named Felix Halverstad who tampered with the Nazi records so that Jews could be released, and there was a man named Vos who was great at falsifying documents and used his skill to save the lives of countless Jewish people in Holland.
As far as righteous Jews who are impacting the world today, there are many, many that come to mind. Some of my favorites: Michael Lerner (see www.tikkun.org), Rabbi Zalman Schacter (see recent interview with him on www.beliefnet.org), Elie Wiesel, Arthur Waskow (visit his organization, www.shalomctr.org ), Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, Paul Rogat Loeb (see www.soulofacitizen.org ), Susan Sontag (recently deceased, alas), Marion Wright-Edelman (www.childrensdefense.org ).
If any of you would like to read books about the Holocaust rescuers, Mary Mark and I have put together a partially-annotated bibliography:
http:/www.hearthasreasons.com/bibliography.html
And please check out my book "The Heart Has Reasons: Meetings with Holocaust Rescuers" when it comes out about a year from now.
"Gentiles" and "nations" means the same thing:
"Gentile" ("gentiles") comes from the Latin word gentili (gentilis) which meant "of the nations". The Catholic Vulgate version translated the Hebrew goyim ("nations") and Greek ethnoi ("nations") as gentili.
Also what upset me when some Jews in a patronizing way say that "gentiles" are fine if the follow the laws of Noah ie they are hold to a very low moral standard.
Which gets on the subject of righteous Jews. A. Pole, your remark sounded blatantly anti-Semitic, but nevertheless, I will answer your question. Righteous Jews? Yes, there were many besides Walter Süskind—there was another fellow named Felix Halverstad who tampered with the Nazi records so that Jews could be released, and there was a man named Vos who was great at falsifying documents and used his skill to save the lives of countless Jewish people in Holland. '
I think that you are missing the key point. You are again talking about saving Jews as the main measure of righteousness. What about righteousness expressing itself in saving non Jews be they Poles, Serbs, Gypsies, Palestinians or others?
There was time for example between 1939 and 1941 when countless Poles were sent to their death to Siberia. At that time Poles were singled for the destruction as the capitalists, government officials (including even the lowest ranking office workers), priests, officers, teachers and other reactionaries as such categories were the backbone of the Polish Republic in the eastern part where majority was non Polish. Other ethnic groups like Jews, Ukrainians and Byelrussian had privileged status as victims of opression under Polish aristocrats (Polskie Pany) and sometimes they could if they wanted save some Polish lives.
Do you see some validity in the difficulty I am presenting? Or are you going to dismiss it as another expression of antisemism? The choice is yours.