Visas for Life:

The Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust, a nonprofit corporation (ISRAH), is an educational organization formed for the purpose of conducting research, disseminating information, promoting awareness of, and honoring groups and individuals for the rescue of Jews and other victims of the Nazis and their collaborators, 1933-1945.

ISRAH is an umbrella organization for the Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project and the Jewish Rescuers Project.

The story of rescue in the Holocaust has been largely ignored and even marginalized.

The principal aim and objectives of the Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust is to show that both groups and individuals could effectively defy the genocidal policies of the Nazis.

ISRAH’s goal is to recognize heroic men and women in order to encourage others to emulate the acts of these courageous people.

ISRAH documents the stories of diplomats, political leaders, state institutions, religious groups, rescue and relief organizations, and other organizations and individuals who were actively involved in rescuing or assisting people persecuted by the Nazis.

Primary activities of the Organization include: producing books and writing scholarly articles; curating traveling exhibits; preparing educational curricula, websites and film documentaries; and organizing public programs. It will also research, document and nominate individuals for the title of Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. ISRAH will also establish its own system to recognize and honor individuals for their altruistic behavior during the period of the Holocaust.

ISRAH will create and maintain a searchable database on rescue and altruism on its website. This will include lists of individuals and groups who were involved in rescue and relief activities during the War. ISRAH will work with scholars and share information and databases.

ISRAH will honor individuals and organizations by issuing commemorative medals, certificates, plaques, etc.

The Organization will promote awareness of rescue and altruism in the Holocaust to European governments whose citizens participated in rescue. It will encourage other organizations to establish their own systems to recognize altruistic individuals.

In cases where individuals were punished for their altruistic activities during the Holocaust, the Organization will encourage these institutions and governments to rehabilitate the reputations of these rescuers.

The Organization works with the families of the rescuers honored in the exhibit and educational material. The Organization also works with individuals who were rescued during the period of the Holocaust, and their families and descendants. The Organization coordinates with the governments of the rescuers, particularly in the case of diplomatic and other state-sponsored rescuers. ISRAH will collect photographs, documents, oral histories and other materials relating to rescue and altruism in the Holocaust, and will share these materials with other institutions and researchers.

Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project

Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats is an exhibit and program that tells for the first time an important and untold story of the Holocaust. If features the dramatic story of diplomats from diverse countries, cultures and backgrounds who saved tens of thousands of lives.

Diplomatic rescue took place between 1933 and 1945 by diplomats representing 27 countries. They rescued Jews in more than 35 geographic areas.

Few are aware that there were diplomats willing to risk their careers and their lives. Many are unaware that diplomatic rescue was even possible. Thousands were rescued by individuals whose heroic deeds have remained largely unrecognized.

Rescue by diplomats took many forms. Diplomats issued visas, including exit visas and transit visas, citizenship papers, protective papers and other forms of documentation that allowed Jews to escape the Nazis. Some diplomats smuggled refugees across international borders. Many diplomats established safe houses and some hid Jews in their embassies and in their personal residences. Some diplomats were able to stop Nazi deportations to the death camps. Some diplomats warned the Jews of impending actions and deportations.

Diplomats rescued Jews at the peril of their careers and, sometimes, their lives. Some of the diplomats who aided Jews did so illegally, and in violation of the regulations and immigration policies of their countries. Diplomats were censured or punished for their acts of courage. Some diplomats were fired or were stripped of their ranks and pensions. Others were ostracized in their home countries.

This Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats exhibit is based on original photographs and other archival materials collected from the families of the diplomats and other original sources. The exhibit also draws on historical accounts by survivors and witnesses. The exhibit has been widely acclaimed and has drawn enthusiastic praise. The exhibit premiered at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in January 1995. The exhibit showed at the United Nations headquarters in April 2000 and at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in July 2000. The exhibit was displayed at the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust in January 2000 and at the national conference of the American Jewish Committee in Washington, DC.

Several heads of state have attended and participated in opening ceremonies of the Visas for Life exhibit, including the King and Queen of Sweden, the Prime Minister of Sweden, the President of Hungary, the President of Switzerland, the Prime Minister of Germany, and U.S. Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell.

Message from Kofi Annan, Former Secretary General of the United Nations

Nana Annan, wife of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

and niece of Raoul Wallenberg, viewing

Visas for Life exhibit at United Nations, 2000

Following is the message of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the opening of the exhibition "Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats" at Headquarters on 3 April 2000. Kofi Annan is married to Nana Annan, niece of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

Dear friends,

This remarkable event, this heart-rending exhibition, and you yourselves all have a natural home at the United Nations. The yearning for a United Nations had its origins in the scourge of fascism and Nazism, and its Charter was written as the world was first learning the full horror of the Holocaust. Today, your struggle -- against hatred and intolerance, and for justice and remembrance -- is our struggle, as well.

The popular image of diplomats is not a flattering one. One familiar description says that "diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest thing, in the nicest way". It is sometimes said that diplomats lack a moral compass, passively following the orders of bosses and regimes regardless of their political or ethical character -- or lack thereof. The popular image of diplomats is not a flattering one. One familiar description says that "diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest thing, in the nicest way". It is sometimes said that diplomats lack a moral compass, passively following the orders of bosses and regimes regardless of their political or ethical character -- or lack thereof.

Maybe that is true of some. It was emphatically not true of the extraordinary people whose stories are told by "Visas for Life". Some famous, others known to just a few, they make up a gallery of courageous individuals who, in the face of an inhuman force that was destroying lives and societies alike, took enormous personal risks to rescue Jews and others facing persecution and peril. They were true heroes; indeed, they were among the foremost human rights defenders of their day. With genocide still stalking our world, they are models for our time, too.

The United Nations seeks to carry on in that tradition -- first and foremost, to save lives, but also to show that the popular image of diplomacy is an unfair caricature. That is why the United Nations tries to shine a spotlight on injustice, wherever it lurks. It is why we build institutions such as the International Criminal Court, so that no one -- from rulers to front-line soldiers -- can enjoy impunity from the rule of law. It is why, next year in South Africa, we will hold a world conference on racism at which, I should stress, anti-Semitism will be one of the forms of intolerance targeted for action. And it is why United Nations personnel continue to work in war zones and other risky places -- many of whom, like Dag Hammarskjöld, have made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of peace.

I would like to express my congratulations to the many groups and individuals who have made this project possible. You are doing more than documenting stories worth passing on from generation to generation. You are teaching the world that each and every one of us has a responsibility to care and be aware, and to speak up in the face of suffering, prejudice and violence. Had there been more righteous diplomats and more righteous people in general over the years, our world might be a better place. With more such individuals in the future, it still can be. In that hopeful spirit, please accept my best wishes for a memorable evening."

History of Diplomatic Rescue 1933-1945

The Nazis depended on the support of millions in order to murder millions. Of the few Jews who survived the Holocaust, some did so largely on their own, while others were helped by good people--friends, neighbors and total strangers.

Many people turned a blind eye and did nothing, or worse they made it harder for the innocent to survive. Diplomats, consuls and foreign officials were in a unique position to extend significant help to Jewish refugees. For persecuted Jews desperately seeking visas to escape the Nazis, the actions of these diplomats could mean the difference between life and death. Many diplomats used every nuance in their regulations in order to keep Jews from entering their countries. Yet a few defied their countries to save Jews.

Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul who saved Jews in Kovno, Lithuania, said: “Those people told me the kind of horror they would have to face if they didn’t get away from the Nazis and I believe them. There was no place else for them to go....If I had waited any longer, even if permission came, it might have been too late.”

Taken all together, these few diplomats rescued many tens of thousands of Jewish lives and were responsible for saving the largest numbers of Jews during the Holocaust. Yet they remained modest. When asked why he did it, Italian-born Giorgio Perlasca who became the Spanish chargé d’affaires in Budapest said simply: “Because I could not bear the sight of people branded as animals. Because I couldn’t bear to see children killed. I think it was this. I don’t think I was a hero.”

As official representatives of their governments, the diplomats were obligated to uphold the immigration laws and policies of their countries. By issuing visas to Jewish refugees, some were acting contrary to the explicit orders of their governments and superiors. Doing this put them at direct risk to their careers and, in some cases, even their lives. After issuing thousands of visas to Jewish and other refugees in Bordeaux, France, in June 1940, Portuguese Consul General Aristides de Sousa Mendes explained: “My government has denied all applications for visas to any refugee. But I cannot allow these people to die....I am going to issue [a visa] to anyone who asks for it...Even if I am discharged I can only act as a Christian, as my conscience tells me.”

Soon after issuing visas, de Sousa Mendes was dismissed from the Portuguese Foreign Ministry and was stripped of his rank and his pension. He was forced to sell his home, was ostracized by his friends, and suffered two strokes that left him partially paralyzed. De Sousa Mendes had no regrets: “If so many Jews can suffer because of one person [Hitler], then one Christian can suffer for Jews.” In 1954, de Sousa Mendes died in poverty.

After more than 60 years, some diplomats honored in the exhibit have yet to be recognized or rehabilitated in their own countries. In the years after the war, many diplomats and their families suffered retribution and economic hardship for their courageous actions. The families of these diplomats have sought to have the respective governments restore the name and the honor of their fathers.

We can now publicly recognize these altruistic people and tell the story of their great deeds.

History of the Visas for Life Project

The Visas for Life project began in 1994 by honoring Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who issued visas to Jews in 1940. In April 1996, the Visas for Life project was expanded to include the stories of Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk, Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes and Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg.

An important part of the project has been to nominate diplomats for Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations program. Diplomats have been officially recognized due to our efforts.

The Visas for Life Project has inspired a number of programs worldwide. The Israeli foreign ministry and Yad Vashem, working with the Visas for Life Project, created a traveling exhibit, which has traveled to numerous foreign ministry venues around the world.

The Visas for Life Project created an exhibit that tells the story of Holocaust survivor Solly Ganor (Zalke Genkind). The exhibit depicts Solly’s life in the Kovno Ghetto, his experiences in the Dachau subcamps, and his subsequent liberation by Japanese American soldiers in May 1945. It also tells of the special relationship that Solly and his family had with Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara.

Highlights and History of the Visas for Life Project and ISRAH

1993

The Visas for Life Project was originally created to honor Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara. The Project is launched in San Francisco, California.

1994

Street in Bern named after Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz.

Three Visas for Life exhibits honoring Chiune Sugihara are produced. Two are in English and one in Japanese.

September 1994

Visas for Life sponsors a mission to Japan to honor Chiune Sugihara and his widow, Yukiko. Several Sugihara survivors give testimony in Japan to his courage. Sugihara monument is rededicated by Sugihara survivors and Deputy Japanese Prime Minister Gotoda. An exhibit honoring Sugihara is opened in his hometown of Yaotsu, Japan. The exhibit also opens in Nagoya, Tokyo, Hiroshima and numerous other cities in Japan.

1995

Visas for Life: The Story of Sugihara exhibit and program is launched in the United States.

January 1995

The Visas for Life exhibit opens up at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance. Mrs. Yukiko Sugihara and her son dedicate the exhibit and are honored in several functions. Steven Spielberg honors Sugihara at a special program in Los Angeles.

Sugihara exhibit opens at the California State Capitol, Sacramento, California.

May 1995

Portugal issues commemorative postage stamp honoring Aristides de Sousa Mendes.

June 1995

Carl Lutz und die Juden von Budapest, by Dr. Theo Tschuy, is published (NZZ Buchverlag, Zurich). This biography stimulates interest in Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz.

September 1995

Visas for Life exhibit featuring Chiune Sugihara shown at the Wing Luke Asian Museum in Seattle, Washington.

October 1995

Aristides de Sousa Mendes presented with the Gran Cross of the Order of Christ, the highest medal awarded to civilians in Portugal.

November 30, 1995

Swiss policeman Paul Grüninger acquitted of all charges related to allowing more than 3,600 Jews to enter Switzerland illegally during World War II.

1996

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats Project premieres exhibit depicting multiple diplomats in San Francisco and at the Holocaust Museum Houston. Exhibit now depicts Sugihara, de Sousa Mendes, Zwartendijk and Raoul Wallenberg.

Visas for Life Project translates, edits and publishes Yukiko Sugihara's biography, Visas for Life.

March 1997

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the Spertus Museum in Chicago.

1997

Dutch Honorary Consul Jan Zwartendijk, who was stationed in Kovno, Lithuania, awarded Righteous Among the Nations medal.

Monsignor Angelo Rotta, Papal Nuncio and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45, is honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit opens at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. US Diplomat Hiram Bingham, IV, is added to the exhibit.

Book on Ambassador Per Anger, A Quiet Courage: Per Anger, Wallenberg's Co-Liberator of Hungarian Jews, by Elizabeth R. Skoglund, is published.

February 1997

Raoul Wallenberg monument is dedicated in London, England.

September 28, 1997

Dr. Feng Shan Ho dies in San Francisco at the age of 96.

1998

Visas for Life project nominates numerous diplomats for the Righteous Among the Nations program at Yad Vashem.

Visas and Virtue, a short theatrical film on Chiune Sugihara, is released and receives an Academy Award.

Alexander Kasser, Swedish Representative for the Red Cross in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45, receives the Righteous Among the Nations award. Kasser passes away shortly thereafter.

Book on Aristides de Sousa Mendes, A Good Man in Evil Times: The Story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes--The Man Who Saved the Lives of Countless Refugees in World War II, by José-Alain Fralon, is published.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate His Holiness the Dalai Lama becomes honorary board member of Visas for Life Project.

Raoul Wallenberg monument is dedicated at the United Nations building in New York City.

April 1998

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit opens at Israel's Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem for the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. The Project sponsors members of the diplomats' families to Israel for the opening of the exhibit.

Israel issues a commemorative postage stamp in honor of Righteous Diplomats.

October 1998

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit is translated into German and opens at Berlin City Hall.

November 1998

The Visas for Life Project curates a separate version of the Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit that will tour in Europe. Exhibit opens in Bern, Switzerland. In attendance is the President of Switzerland. This exhibit begins tour of cities throughout Switzerland and Europe.

Visas for Life Project curates photo exhibit on the Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz. Exhibit opens at the Swiss consulate in Los Angeles and tours throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe and Israel.

May 1999

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit opens in Budapest, Hungary, at the National Library. Attended by the President of Hungary and the diplomatic corps. Also in attendance is Swedish diplomat Ambassador Per Anger.

October 1999

British diplomat who was stationed in Berlin, Frank Foley, awarded Righteous Among the Nations medal for saving Jews.

Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews, by Michael Smith, is published in England.

Visas for Life Project curates separate exhibit on the life and rescue activities of Chinese diplomat Dr. Feng Shan Ho, who rescued Jews in Vienna. Exhibit opens at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, the Chinese Cultural Centre, and other museums.

November 1999

Dr. Harald Feller and Peter Zürcher, Swiss diplomats in Budapest, receive the Righteous Among the Nations award.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes is honored by the European Parliament.

1999

Agnes Hirschi, daughter of Carl Lutz, who lives in Bern, Switzerland, becomes European Exhibit coordinator of Visas for Life.

Israeli Foreign Ministry tours the Visas for Life exhibit through its embassies and cultural ministry. Exhibit is shown throughout Europe.

Jean-Edouard Friedrich, Swiss diplomat stationed in Germany, is honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

January 2000

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit opens at the International Forum on the Holocaust in Stockholm, Sweden. This program is attended by 40 heads of state and the exhibit is visited by the King and Queen of Sweden.

Chaim Roet attends the exhibition and is inspired to create a committee to honor Jewish rescuers, called the Jews Rescuing Jews Committee.

The Visas for Life now tells the story of more than 50 diplomats.

April 2000

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit opens at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. Opening program is held in the hall of the General Assembly. Many of the families of the diplomats are in attendance. Polish diplomat Jan Karski and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel are the guests of honor. The Visas for Life exhibit is sponsored by and produced in cooperation with the major Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, The Jewish National Fund, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the World Jewish Congress and Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel becomes honorary board member of Visas for Life Project.

May 2000

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the national convention of the American Jewish Committee in Washington, D.C. Dinner attended by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the Prime Minister of Sweden and the President of Germany.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., dedicates exhibit honoring diplomats Sugihara and Zwartendijk, called Flight and Rescue. Book is later published, also entitled Flight and Rescue.

July 2000

Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit opens at the United Nations European headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Exhibit is sponsored by the Secretary General and the Chief of Protocol, Mehmet Ülkümen, son of Turkish Consul General Selahattin Ülkümen.

August 2000

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the National Museum in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In attendance is the President of Slovenia.

September 2000

Ambassador Per Anger becomes honorary citizen of the state of Israel.

Dr. Ho is awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award by the state of Israel.

Japanese foreign ministry dedicates memorial to Sugihara in its headquarters. Ministry formally apologizes to Mrs. Sugihara for not recognizing Sugihara’s work earlier.

Film Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness wins prestigious Independent Documentary Association award and first place in Hollywood Film Festival.

November 2000

Documentary film on diplomatic rescue, Diplomats for the Damned, premieres at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Theater. Film is distributed along with student guide to schools and airs on the History Channel.

2000

The Visas for Life Project nominates Turkish diplomats who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. They are honored with a medal of heroism by the Turkish government. Honored are Selahattin Ülkümen, Necdet Kent and Namik Kemal Yolga. All three of these heroic diplomats, in their late 80's and 90's, were able to receive these medals personally.

Visas for Life exhibit and speaker’s program participates in more than 100 programs since its inception in 1994.

Polish diplomat Jan Karski, who warned the western world of the Holocaust, passes away.

Book on Carl Lutz, Dangerous Diplomacy: The Story of Carl Lutz, Rescuer of 62,000 Hungarian Jews, by Dr. Theo Tschuy, is published. Book receives literary prize.

Swiss government issues postage stamp honoring Carl Lutz.

Book on George Mandel Mantello is published entitled, The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz: George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland’s Finest Hour. Written by David Kranzler.

Book on Spanish diplomat Don Angel Sanz-Briz, Un Español Frente al Holocausto, by Diego Carcedo, is published.

Children's book on Chiune Sugihara, A Special Fate: Chiune Sugihara: Hero of the Holocaust, written by Alison Leslie Gold, is published.

Abigail Bingham Endicott composes the song They Were True to the Voice of Love in honor of diplomatic rescuers.

2001

Beatification of Pope John XXIII. Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was the Papal Nuncio in Turkey who saved 24,000 Jews. The Visas for Life Project supports the beatification.

Elow Kihlgren, Swedish diplomat stationed in Italy, is honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Florian Manoliu, Romanian diplomat stationed in Hungary, is honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

Howard Elting, Sr., US Consul in Bern, Switzerland, who passed on the Auschwitz Report to the State Department with an endorsement of credibility, passes away.

Portuguese government obtains the old Aristides de Sousa Mendes estate in Cabanas de Viriato, begins raising money for its restoration as a tribute to his rescue work.

Portuguese President Mario Soares apologizes to the Portuguese Jewish community for the injustices of the Portuguese Inquisition in 1496. He does this in conjunction with honoring de Sousa Mendes.

Visas for Life exhibition opens in San Francisco. Ten thousand people see the exhibit in eight weeks.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate from East Timor, José Ramos Horta becomes honorary board member of Visas for Life Project. The Visas for Life Project gives Mr. Horta the One Person Can Make a Difference prize for his courageous action in bringing peace and independence to East Timor. This award is also given to Ms. Anne Treseder and Mr. John Crisostomo.

August 2001

Monument for Raoul Wallenberg is dedicated in Stockholm, Sweden.

September 2001

Three versions of the Visas for Life exhibit honoring Dr. Feng Shan Ho are exhibited in China. One exhibit opened in Dr. Ho's home town of Yiyang. A second exhibit opened at the original Yale-in-China campus in Yali, where Dr. Ho attended college. A large exhibit was also opened in Beijing, in cooperation with the Israeli embassy.

October 2001

Visas for Life exhibit is translated into French and opens at the Memorial du Martyr Juif Inconnu at the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris, France. Exhibit opening ceremony takes place at the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) of Paris. Opening is attended by the Mayor of Paris and members of the Rothschild family.

2002

Ambassador Per Anger, Raoul Wallenberg's colleague in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45, passes away.

Consul General Necdet Kent, Turkish Consul in Paris who saved Jews, passes away.

Visas for Life Project has documented more than 100 diplomats who rescued Jews. These diplomats represent 27 countries.

Sir Martin Gilbert’s book, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust, is published. In this detailed study, Sir Martin draws upon 25 years of original research to tell the stories of those who risked their lives to help save Jews from deportation and death. Many stories of the Righteous diplomats are told in this book.

Pope John XXIII, written by Thomas Cahill, is published. References about his rescue of Eastern European Jews are presented in the book.

An old Raoul Wallenberg statue that was created after the war is restored and rededicated in Budapest.

February 2002

Consul Carl Lutz becomes honorary citizen of the State of Israel.

April 2002

Visas for Life exhibit is hosted by the London Jewish Community and Cultural Centre at King's College, London. In attendance is the Mayor of London and numerous Ambassadors.

August 4, 2002

Raoul Wallenberg’s 90^th birthday is celebrated. Renewed interest in his story is generated.

October 2002

Visas for Life exhibit shown at Boston University, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee.

Visas for Life exhibit shown at Rider College, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, New Jersey.

US Congressman Tom Lantos from California and his wife, Annette, become honorary Chairmen of the Visas for Life Project. They were rescued by Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944-45.

November 2002

Visas for Life exhibit opens at St. Mary's College in San Antonio, Texas.

The Visas for Life exhibit adds the role of Italian diplomats who rescued Jews in Yugoslavia, Greece and Southern France. At least 17 Italian diplomats were active in the rescue of Jews in these areas. These diplomats are officially nominated by the Visas for Life Project to be honored by the State of Israel with the designation of Righteous Person.

Becsület és batorsag: Carl Lutz és a budapesti zsidok (Honour and Courage: Carl Lutz and the Budapest Jews), by Dr. Theo Tschuy, is published in Hungary.

December 2002

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the Cape Town Holocaust Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, and then tours to Johannesburg and Durban, South Africa.

Sugihara memorial statue is dedicated in Los Angeles.

April 2003

The Visas for Life Project, along with Enrico Mantello, The Wallenberg Society of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, and the Mowszowski family, sponsors commemorative medals honoring Raoul Wallenberg, Carl Lutz and Chiune Sugihara. These medals are issued by the Israeli State Coins and Medals.

Mrs. Yukiko Sugihara and her son, Chiaki, are sponsored to a special trip to Honolulu, Hawaii, organized by the Visas for Life Project. They are honored by the Governor and the State Legislature. The Hawaiian Japanese American community participates in numerous commemorative programs.

Colonel Harry Fukuhara and Major Noby Yoshimura are honored with a One Person Can Make a Difference award by Visas for Life for their role in discovering the Sugihara story. They are given a medal in a special ceremony with Mrs. Sugihara in attendance.

May 2003

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the Marshfield Public Library, Marshfield, Wisconsin, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sponsored by the Milwaukee Chapter of the American Jewish Committee. The exhibit is also shown in Milwaukee.

Light One Candle: A Child’s Diary of the Holocaust exhibit (includes story of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara) opens at the YIVO institute in New York City. Exhibit runs through November 2003.

June 7, 2003

Selahattin Ülkümen, the Turkish diplomat who saved Jews on the island of Rhodes, passes away in Istanbul.

September 2003

A memorial plaque honoring Jan Zwartendijk was unveiled in Kaunas, Lithuania at the site of his office.

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the City Hall in Vienna, Austria. Many families of the diplomats travel to the opening of the exhibition. The exhibit is widely covered in the press.

Alison Leslie Gold publishes Fiet’s Vase and Other Stories of Survival, Europe 1939-1945. In this book, there are a number of stories of diplomatic rescue, including the stories of Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Wallenberg survivor Kate Wacz, Bernadotte survivor Gloria Lyon and Sugihara friend Solly Ganor.

October 2003

Visas for Life exhibit shows in the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC, sponsored by Congressman Tom Lantos and Senator Charles Schumer.

Visas for Life presents commemorative medals and books to US Secretary of State Colin Powell in a special ceremony at the State Department. Letter requesting opening of archives and cooperation of countries to determine the fate of Raoul Wallenberg.

Members of the Visas for Life families attend tribute to Holocaust survivors in commemoration of the 10^th anniversary of the founding of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Present diplomatic commemorative medals to the Director of the museum.

Three new diplomats are discovered during the week-long festivities. They are honored in the exhibition and program. This brings the total number of diplomats being documented by the Project to 147.

Petition is written and circulated to determine the ultimate fate of Raoul Wallenberg.

Sir Martin Gilbert, of London, England, an internationally renowned historian, has agreed to co-author a book on diplomatic rescue in World War II. Gilbert, a Holocaust historian, has authored over 70 works, including an impressive eight-volume official biography of Sir Winston Churchill. The Visas for Life manuscript is being prepared in cooperation with Visas for Life Director Eric Saul. This book will be an elegantly illustrated book with maps and biographies of all the diplomats.

Abigail Bingham Endicott composes song Tikun Olam (Heal the World) in honor of diplomatic rescuers.

December 11, 2003

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the Arts and Cultural Center sponsored by the Holocaust Documentation and Education Center in North Miami, Florida. Guests of honor were the Mayor of Hollywood, Florida, and former US Attorney General Janet Reno.

Dr. Harald Feller passes away in Bern, Switzerland.

2004

Members of the Emergency Rescue Committee who worked with Varian Fry in Marseilles are nominated by Visas for Life for the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

January 2004

Exhibit entitled Raoul Wallenberg – One Man Can Make a Difference opens in Stockholm, Sweden, at the Jewish Museum. This exhibit is produced by the Jewish Museum in Stockholm.

February 2004

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the International Convention Center, Binyaney Ha’ooma, Jerusalem, Israel. Visas for Life commemorative medals are presented to various dignitaries in Israel. The exhibit is sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and Julius Koppelman.

The Visas for Life Project gives the One Person Can Make a Difference award to Mr. Chaim Roet and the Jews Rescuing Jews Committee. Presentation is made at Yad Vashem. Also honored is Mr. Max Grunberg, of the Raoul Wallenberg Honorary Citizenship Committee, who has also worked for the Raoul Wallenberg cause.

The Visas for Life Project has now researched more than 200 diplomats who rescued Jews.

March 2004

Visas for Life exhibit opens at St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida.

May 2004

Light One Candle: Child’s Diary of the Holocaust exhibition opens at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Center.

July 2004

Visas for Life Project nominates Father Gennaro Verolino, Secretary to Angelo Rotta in Budapest, 1944-45, for the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

July 26, 2004

Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats exhibition opens at the Hungarian Foreign Ministry building in Budapest. This is for a gathering of Hungarian diplomats in honor of the 60^th anniversary of diplomatic rescue in Budapest. Agnes Hirschi, Visas for Life European Exhibit Coordinator, organizes this program.

September 2004

Visas for Life Project has program in Washington, DC, and New York City to honor diplomats who saved Jews in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-45.

December 2004

Yad Vashem agrees to present Hiram Bingham IV, the US diplomat in Marseilles, and Father Gennaro Verolino, Secretary to Angelo Rotta, with letters of commendation for saving Jews during the Shoa.

The Israeli Knesset agrees to continue investigation regarding the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg in the former Soviet Union. The Knesset also will establish an educational curriculum to honor the rescue activities of Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest.

March 2005

Yad Vashem honors Hiram “Harry” Bingham IV with a letter of commendation in appreciation for “facilitating the immigration of Jewish persons from France during 1940-1941.”

April 2005

Visas for Life exhibit opens in Montreal, Canada, and has a one-year tour. The exhibit also opens at the Cleveland Public Library.

May 2005

Visas for Life documents 300 diplomats who helped or saved Jews.

Exhibit is opened honoring Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz in the former Glass House on Vadasz Utca.

Carl Lutz is honored in Visas for Life exhibition sponsored by the Swiss consulate in New York City.

WGBH, the Public Broadcasting System affiliate in Boston, broadcasts “Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness” on a national broadcast.

The Visas for Life Project decides to expand its program to honor heads of state and foreign ministers who were active in saving Jews during the Shoah.

2006

Robert Kim Bingham, son of Hiram Bingham, writes and publishes book “Courageous Dissent: How Harry Bingham Defied His Government to Save Lives.”

The Visas for Life Project joins the Association of Holocaust Organizations (AHO).

May 30, 2006

US Postal Service honors American diplomat Hiram “Harry” Bingham with a commemorative postage stamp as part of a “Distinguished American Diplomat” series.

June 9, 2006

The Visas for Life Project becomes a US nonprofit institution, 501(c)(3), and the project will be under the umbrella of the Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust, a nonprofit corporation (ISRAH). ISRAH expands its mission to document state-sponsored rescue, rescue by religious institutions and rescue agencies.

As part of its mission, ISRAH will also document and honor Jews who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. ISRAH begins compiling a list of Jewish organizations and individuals.

2007

Father Gennaro Verolino, the Vatican assistant nuncio in Budapest 1944-1945, is honored by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations.

ISRAH compiles a list of Jews who were involved in the rescue of their fellow Jews and a database of Jewish rescue organizations.

February 3, 2007

Historical seminar on Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg is conducted in Budapest sponsored by the Swedish Foreign Ministry. Raoul Wallenberg’s niece, Louise von Dardel, attends.

March 24, 2007

Dedication of Raoul Wallenberg Street in Paris, France.

June 2007

Visas for Life Project prepares special exhibit on Ambassador Gilberto Bosques and the rescue of Jews in France, which premieres at the Tuvio Maizel Museum of the Holocaust in Mexico City. Vice President of Mexico attends the opening.

September 2007

Ambassador Gilberto Bosques exhibit opens in the Mexican Foreign Ministry building. The Mexican Foreign Minister attends the opening, along with a number of ambassadors to Mexico.

October 2007

The Light One Candle: A Child’s Diary of the Holocaust exhibit opens at the Holocaust Centre of Toronto.

January 27, 2008

Exhibit on Carl Lutz opens at the United Nations as part of the commemoration of the Holocaust.

Visa Retten Leben: Die “Gerechten Diplomaten” [Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats] exhibit opens in Idar-Oberstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

March 30, 2008

Visas for Life exhibit opens at the Ellis Island/Statue of Liberty museum. The exhibit is enhanced to include new diplomats who have been researched over the past number of years. The exhibit also has a special component honoring American diplomats and rescue agencies that saved Jews.

April 28-May 2, 2008

Visas for Life exhibit honoring American diplomats opens in Washington, DC, at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee. US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice is scheduled to attend the opening.

May 2008

The Light One Candle: A Child’s Diary of the Holocaust exhibit scheduled to open at the KZ Gedenkstätte Dachau [Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Museum]. The exhibit will open at a special reunion of survivors of the Dachau concentration camp from Israel. The exhibit is scheduled to tour to Landsberg and the city of Munich.

September 2008

Exhibit to open at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance honoring Ambassador Gilberto Bosques. The exhibit is curated by Eric Saul and sponsored jointly by ISRAH and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The exhibit will tour the United States after its showing there.

The Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Exhibit

The Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit originally premiered at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. It has also been shown at the Yad Vashem Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Israel; and in Belgium; China; France; Germany; Great Britain; Hungary; Japan; Lithuania; Slovenia; South Africa; Sweden; Switzerland; as well as in many museums, schools, libraries and institutions throughout the United States and Canada.

This exhibit was prepared in cooperation with the families of these extraordinary diplomats. In curating the exhibit, we had access to the families’ private photo collections (containing many never-before seen Holocaust era photographs).

You can become part of the history of the Visas for Life Project. Our project depends on local communities for help with our educational mission. Coordinators and participants everywhere agree that hosting the exhibit is a very rewarding experience and most feel that it has changed their lives in a positive way.

If you are interested in obtaining information on how to host the exhibit, please contact us at VisasForLife@cs.com.

List of Diplomats Honored (Partial)

These are some of the diplomats whose stories are depicted in the Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats exhibit. These diplomats represent more then 27 countries.

Not all of the diplomats depicted in the exhibit have been recognized by Israel’s Holocaust remembrance authority, Yad Vashem, with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. Those who have been so honored are indicated on this list with an asterisk.

The Visas for Life Project has a somewhat different set of criteria from Yad Vashem for honoring diplomats. For example, some diplomats are Jewish or for other reasons did not meet Yad Vashem’s criteria for being honored.

Many of these diplomats have been nominated for the Yad Vashem award, and we are awaiting the outcome of their decision. This fact does not preclude these diplomats from being depicted in the Visas for Life exhibit or being honored in international venues.

Per Anger*, Secretary of the Swedish Legation in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-1945

Count Folke Bernadotte, Swedish Red Cross, Germany, 1945

Hiram Bingham^†, US Vice Consul in Marseilles, France, 1940-1941

Friedrich Born*, Red Cross of Switzerland in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-1945

Gilberto Bosques, Mexican Consul General, Paris and Marseilles, France, 1939-1943

Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho*, Portuguese Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest, 1944-1945

Monsignor Andrea Cassulo, Vatican Nuncio, Bucharest, Romania, 1936-1947

Giuseppe Castrucci, Italian Consul General in Salonika, Greece, 1943

Rives Childs, US Consul General in Tangier, Algeria, 1944

Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz*, German Consul in Copenhagen, Denmark, 1943

Harald Feller*, Swiss Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest, 1944-1945

Frank Foley*, British Vice Consul in Charge of Visas in Berlin, 1933-1939

Dr. Raymond Herman Geist, American Consul General and First Secretary, US Embassy in Berlin, 1929-1939

Dr. Feng Shan Ho*^‡, Chinese Consul General in Vienna, 1938-1940

Dr. Valdemar Langlet* and Nina Langlet*, Swedish Red Cross Delegate in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-1945

Charles “Carl” Lutz*, Consul for Switzerland in Budapest, Hungary, 1942-1945, and Gertrud Lutz*, Wife of Consul Carl Lutz, Budapest, Hungary

George Mandel Mantello, Acting First Secretary for El Salvador in Geneva, 1942-1945 (Jewish diplomat)

Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes*, Portuguese Consul, Bordeaux, France, June 1940

Giorgio Perlasca*, “Chargé d’Affaires” of the Spanish Legation, Budapest, 1944-1945

Ernst Prodolliet*, Swiss Consul General in Bregenz, Austria, 1938-1939

Archbishop Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Papal Nuncio (Ambassador) in Istanbul, Turkey, 1943-1945

Monsignor Angelo Rotta*, Italy, Papal Nuncio (Ambassador) in Budapest, 1944-1945

Don Angel Sanz-Briz*, Spain, Ambassador in Budapest, 1944

Henryk Slawik*, Polish Chargé d’Affaires in Budapest, Hungary, 1944

Laurence A. Steinhardt, US Ambassador to USSR 1939-1941, and Turkey 1942-1945 (Jewish diplomat)

Chiune Sugihara*, Consul for Japan in Kovno, Lithuania, 1940

Selahattin Ülkümen*, Turkish Consul General in Rhodes, July 1944

Father Gennaro Verolino*, Vatican representative in Budapest, 1944-1945

Ernst Vonrufs*, Acting representative of Swiss interests in Budapest, 1944-1945

Raoul Wallenberg*, Swedish Special Envoy in Budapest, Hungary, 1944-1945

Li Yu-Ying, Chinese Consul, Marseilles, France, 1940

Guelfo Zamboni, Italian Consul General in Salonika, Greece, 1941-1943

Peter Zürcher*, Acting Representative of Swiss Interests in Budapest, 1945

Jan Zwartendijk*, Acting Dutch Consul in Kovno, Lithuania, 1940

* Recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations.

^†Recognized by the State of Israel with Letter of Commendation.

‡ Not included in Visas for Life exhibit.

Jewish Rescuers Project

Introduction: Jewish Rescuers Project

In Slovakia, the deportation trains stopped in 1942 due to inspired negotiation with the Nazis by the Bratislava Working Group under leadership of Rabbi Michael Weissmandl and Ms. Gisi Fleischmann. The deportation trains from Hungary stopped in mid-1944 when a Romanian-Hungarian Jew, George Mantello, publicized the atrocities of Auschwitz and thereby ignited the conscience of the Swiss people which led to the first major public protest against the Holocaust and severe warning to Hungary regent by leaders of the free world. Tens of thousands of Jews were spirited out of Europe by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, who expended millions of dollars and sent agents all over Europe to rescue Jews.

Hundreds of Jews participated in the rescue of their fellow Jews during the Nazi period and the Holocaust, 1933-1945.

There were more than 200 Jewish rescue organizations active both inside and outside Nazi occupied territory. These rescue organizations were comprised of hundreds of brave and innovative individuals.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved.

The rescue of Jews by Jews in Nazi occupied territory was extremely dangerous. Not only were Jews subject to the normal persecution and threat of deportation and murder, but they were also in double jeopardy. Many Jews were killed by the Nazis for protecting Jews. Some Jews came out of hiding to rescue fellow Jews. Others delayed their own opportunity to escape the Nazis in order to remain to help their fellow Jews.

Organized and individual rescue of Jews by Jews took place in virtually every country and under every circumstance during the Nazi occupation of Europe. Rescue took many forms, including hiding Jews or helping them escape, providing false documents, providing food and medical supplies, warning their fellow Jews about impending actions and deportations, and warning the world. Jewish philanthropic organizations raised and distributed millions of dollars to keep Jews alive in Nazi occupied Europe. They helped hundreds of thousands of Jews escape to safe havens throughout the free world.

Purpose

There has been no unified attempt, to date, to document or honor Jewish rescuers and rescue organizations. It is the purpose of ISRAH to create a project that will do so.

It is the intention of ISRAH to facilitate and promote the recognition of Jewish rescue in the Shoah.

Specifically, ISRAH will do the following: publish books and articles; create an international traveling exhibit; create a commemorative medal; have the Israeli post office issue commemorative postage stamps.

Most importantly, ISRAH will encourage Holocaust museums to create an exhibit on Jewish rescue and add it to their permanent displays.

Honoring Jewish Rescuers and Organizations

Jewish rescuers to be honored are individuals and organizations who, on their own initiative, had been actively and directly involved in saving one or more fellow Jews from being killed or sent to a ghetto, transit camp or concentration camp when the Jews were trapped in a country under the control of the Nazis or their collaborators during the period of the Holocaust, 1933-1945. They are also individuals and organizations who provided vital funds, food, medicine, etc., for Jewish survival. They also include Jews who warned Jews of the impending disaster, who even negotiated with the Nazis to stop transports and who relentlessly pressured free world governments to intercede. Some rescue initiatives failed. These attempts should be recorded and these Jewish rescuers honored nonetheless.

This includes those Jews who worked behind enemy lines, in ghettoes, transit camps, concentration camps and death camps. It also includes Jews who worked from countries not under Nazi and Fascist rule. It should also include Jews who warned their fellow Jews and the world of the impending disaster, who pressured free world governments to intercede on the Jews behalf, who negotiated with the Nazis to ransom Jewish communities, as well as those who provided relief and funding to their fellow Jews so that they could survive.

The Project would also honor Jewish organizations that were active in the rescue of Jews. These would include both organizations that worked inside Nazi occupied territory, such as the Bratislava Working Group, the Relief Organization for Jewish Refugees Abroad (Recha and Isaac Sternbuch), Va’ad Hatsala, the Jewish youth underground in Budapest, Mossad Aliyah Bet, Perl Transport (Af-Al-Pi, “Despite Everything”), Delegation for the Assistance of Immigrants (DELASEM), Zegota (Council for Aid to Jews), Refugee Aid Committee in Romania, the Mouvement de Jeunesse Sioniste (MJS; Zionist Youth Movement), Eclaireurs Israelite de France (EIF), He Halutz Youth Movement, and organizations that operated outside of Nazi occupied territories. These would include such organizations as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS-ICA-EMIGDIRECT; HICEM), the Bergson Group (Hillel Kook) and the Rescue Committee of the United States Orthodox Rabbis. Individuals within the organization will be honored as well if they had an exemplary record of rescue and if they did not obstruct rescue. .

A critical analysis of the success of some of these organizations in the rescue of Jews would be appropriate. Also, a study of the individuals who worked within these organizations and the characteristics that made them successful. Many of the individual rescuers and organizations displayed a high degree of creativity, imagination, initiative, spontaneity and adaptability.

The Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust, a nonprofit corporation, is working with the Jews Who Rescued Jews Committee, chaired by Haim Roet, and the Jerusalem Working Group, chaired by Larry Pfeffer.

Documentaries Produced

Diplomats for the Damned is a one-hour documentary produced in cooperation with the History Channel. It depicts four of diplomats: Charles “Carl” Lutz, Dr. Aristides de Sousa Mendes, Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz and Hiram “Harry” Bingham, IV.

Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness is a one-hour documentary on the rescue activities of Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara.

Sponsoring and Cooperating Agencies

Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project is sponsored by and produced in cooperation with the following organizations:

American Foreign Service Association

American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors

American Jewish Committee

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith

Association of Holocaust Organizations

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

Hidden Child Foundation

Jewish Foundation for the Righteous

Jewish National Fund

Museum of Jewish Heritage

Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States

Simon Wiesenthal Center, Museum of Tolerance

Thanks to Scandinavia

United Jewish Communities

US State Department

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

Wallenberg Society of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford

World Jewish Congress

Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Visas for Life and ISRAH in the News

The following are some excerpts of news articles published on the Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats exhibit and project.

Editorial on Visas for Life in the Boston Globe

“Diplomats of Uncommon Courage”

by Jeff Jacoby - October 22, 2002

Who, thinking of heroes, thinks of diplomats? "Diplomats were invented simply to waste time," an exasperated David Lloyd George once remarked -- and, he might have added, to dissemble, to defend the indefensible, to procrastinate, to hide behind jargon, to steer clear of moral judgment, and to never take risks. It takes certain skills to be a successful diplomat, but courage is not commonly thought of as one of them.

And in fairness, why would it be? The diplomat speaks for his government, not for himself. His job is to toe the government's line and enforce its rules, whatever that line and those rules might be. If he has objections, he is expected to keep them to himself. If he can't keep them to himself, he is expected to resign.

What brings these thoughts to mind is "Visas for Life," a deeply moving exhibit that tells the story of 48 diplomats in Nazi Europe who risked their careers and sometimes their lives to rescue Jews and other refugees during the Holocaust. The exhibit has already traveled to more than 100 venues worldwide; it is now at the Boston University Gallery on Commonwealth Avenue, where it can be seen through Nov. 6.

Diplomacy played a shameful role in paving the way for the Holocaust. In July 1938, facing a rising flood of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany and Austria, diplomats from 32 nations met at Evian, France, to agree on a solution to the crisis. What they agreed was that none of them would help. The tone was set by the United States, which announced that it would accept just 27,370 immigrants per year -- its existing quota for Germany and Austria. Virtually every country in Europe and Latin America followed suit. The message to Hitler was clear: The world would do nothing to save Jews.

And nothing was what most of the diplomatic corps did. As the Nazis began deporting the Jews of Austria to Dachau and Buchenwald that summer, thousands of desperate families besieged the 55 foreign consulates in Vienna for help. At 54 of them, the doors were closed. The French refused to accept visa applications. A sign at the British consulate advised that no visas were being issued. Swiss diplomats actually stamped the passports of Jews with a red 'J' to keep them from crossing the border.

They were only following orders, of course. To do otherwise would have been to violate their governments' policies and be seen as insubordinate -- behavior most undiplomatic.

Only Feng Shan Ho, the Chinese consul in Vienna, had a higher priority than diplomatic punctilio. Shocked by the Nazis' brutality, appalled by Austria's embrace of Hitler, he determined to do what he could to help Jews escape. Between 1938 and 1940, he wrote thousands of entry visas, the critical document refugees needed in order to leave Austria. The final destination shown on Ho's visas was Shanghai -- a city that in fact required no entry visa. But with that piece of paper in hand, fleeing Jews could obtain transit visas through other countries, and eventually make their way to safety.

Saving refugees' lives meant flouting Chinese government policy, for Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Chinese ruler, was an admirer of the Nazis. It meant angering Ho's superior, Ambassador Chen Jie in Berlin, who at one point angrily phoned and ordered him to stop writing visas. A traditional diplomat would never have put himself in such a position. Ho, impelled by conscience and compassion, couldn't help doing so.

"Visas for Life" is decidedly low-tech: wall-mounted photographs and text. Its power is in the stories it tells -- stories of bravery and character, of ordinary men driven by extraordinary moral courage.

The legendary Raoul Wallenberg is here, of course. But so are others far less known:

* Harry Bingham, the US vice consul in Marseilles, who issued thousands of visas and letters of transit to Jewish refugees in direct violation of orders. He sheltered Jews in his home and escorted others over the French-Spanish border; at times he would even drive into concentration camps, confront the Nazi commandant with falsified US papers, and demand that Jewish prisoners be released into his custody.

* Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul in Kovno, Lithuania, who sacrificed his diplomatic career to save the lives of 2,500 Jews. Despite orders from Tokyo to issue no visas, he issued as many as he could write. Upon his return to Japan in 1947, he was fired from the Foreign Ministry. The reason given was "that incident in Lithuania."

* Carl Lutz, the Swiss consul in Budapest, Hungary, who came up with a masterstroke: the "Schutzpass," or protective letter -- a legally meaningless but visually impressive document declaring the bearer to be under the protection of the issuing government. He issued tens of thousands of these letters and hid Jews in safe houses all over Budapest.

At a time when more prudent men looked the other way, there were a few, a very few, who had the greatness to act. Who, thinking of heroes, thinks of diplomats? I do, now.

Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe, where this article originally appeared.

"Visas for Life" can be seen through Nov. 6, 2002, at the Boston University Gallery, 808 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. The exhibit is sponsored in Boston by the American Jewish Committee, Boston University, and Boston University Hillel.

Visas for Life Discovers Feng Shan Ho

“A Righteous Father”

by Claudia Cornwall

Reader’s Digest, September 2001

For nearly six decades, Feng Shan Ho’s extraordinary courage remained a secret. Then two people joined forces to uncover the truth.

It was threatening to rain as Manli Ho walked towards Yad Vashem, high on a hill overlooking western Jerusalem. Below her, a forest had been planted to commemorate the lives of men and women who had rescued Jews from the Nazis. The names of Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Shindler were engraved on plaques as honoured heroes. Her father would soon be part of this distinguished company.

The auditorium at the Yad Vashem memorial was packed when Manli reached the front. The slim, pretty woman, wearing a black cheongsam under her jacket, looked out over a sea of faces. Among the dignitaries was Ambassador Pan Zhanlin from China, as well as Ambassador Wolfgang Paul from Austria and retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Yaakov Maltz.

Justice Maltz announced that Feng Shan Ho had been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations, then presented Manli and her older brother Monto with a medal. On one side was the name of her father, and on the other, a Jewish proverb: “Whoever saves one life is as though he has saved an entire world.”

Manli told the audience that her father would have been astonished, never expecting praise for his actions. She quoted Shakespeare: “The evil that men do lives after them/The good is oft interred with their bones.”

And except for a remarkable coincidence, the good Feng Shan Ho did would have been lost to history too.

“It’s time for me to go,” Feng Shan Ho said one day in June 1997. Manli’s eyes filled with tears.

Her father had always been strong; even in his eighties he took long walks, scrambling over the sand dunes on his way to San Francisco’s Ocean Beach to take in a favourite view of the surging Pacific. But now, at the age of 96, he was dying.

Three months later, on September 28, he passed away, peacefully, in his bed.

Manli, who had once been a newspaper reporter, sat down at her father’s desk, surrounded by his books, and finished writing his obituary.

Ho was born in Hunan province in 1901, while the Ching dynasty still ruled China. His father died when Ho was seven, leaving the family destitute. But thanks to Norwegian Lutheran missionaries, the young man (whose name means “Phoenix on the Mountain”) would win a place at the College of Yale-in-China. After graduating with a BA in 1926, he earned a Ph.D. in Political Economics from the University of Munich in Germany. Speaking English, German and Mandarin fluently, he began a diplomatic career in 1935 that spanned almost 40 years, first for China, then Taiwan.

Manli included his many diplomatic postings – Egypt, Mexico, Bolivia, Columbia – and mentioned how he helped to found the Chinese Lutheran Church in San Francisco.

Then she remembered an incident from the distant past. Her father was in Vienna before World War II and witnessed the mounting persecution of Jews. One day, he said, he’d stared down Nazi bullies, saving the lives of Jewish friends whom he had given visas so they could leave the country.

Although Manli didn’t have space for details, she mentioned the confrontation with the Gestapo. The she sent the obituary to the San Francisco Chronicle and the Boston Globe, where she had once worked.

Events now took a surprising turn. Newspapers across the country picked up the story, including the Sacramento Bee. There it caught the eye of Eric Saul.

Saul, 47, was the owner of a picture-framing shop in San Francisco. But he was also in historian who had worked in several museums. There he’d come upon the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who had rescued thousands of Polish Jews in 1940.

Inspired by the man’s heroism, Saul had sunk his life’s savings into researching, documenting and telling the stories of other diplomats who had helped Jews during World War II. But he’d never heard of Feng Shan Ho.

Saul called directory assistance—the only “F. Ho” listed was just a few kilometres away in Richmond District. Startled, Saul realised he might have passed the man in the street. He dialled number, and Manli Ho answered.

They met about a week later at David’s, a well-known Jewish delicatessen in the area. Amid the clatter and bustle of waitresses carrying plates of bagels and blintzes, Saul pressed Manli for what she knew about the people her father had helped.

Not much, she admitted, just that one story about the Gestapo…

It took place on November 10, 1938, during Kristallnacht, the infamous “Night of the Broken Glass,” when the synagogues in Germany and Austria were set on fire, the windows of Jewish shops were smashed, and thousands of Jews were arrested.

Ho was China’s Consul General in Vienna, and while the looting was still going on he checked on the Rosenbergs, a Jewish family he had befriended.

Mr. Rosenberg had been dragged away for questioning; Ho was staying with Mrs. Rosenberg when two men wearing trench coats burst in and announced they were going to search the house.

Manli remembered how her father imitated the men as he told her what happened. He would pull an imaginary hat down over his eyes, scowl and pretend to have a gun in his pocket. He said one of the thugs pointed a gun at him and demanded to know who he was.

“Who are you?” Ho responded, not intimidated.

A Gestapo agent ordered Mrs. Rosenberg to say who her visitor was. “The Consul General of China,” she replied.

“God damn it, why didn’t you tell me?” the agent yelled. They left.

Mr. Rosenberg was released from questioning. Manli explained that her father had already given the Rosenbergs visas for China, which they used to leave Austria.

“Why did he do it?” Saul asked.

“If you knew my father, you wouldn’t have to ask,” Manli replied. “After seeing what was happening to the Jews, he felt it was natural for any human to feel compassion and to want to help.”

Saul smiled. He had a hunch that the help did not end with the Rosenbergs.

A month later Saul spoke to Genya Markon, curator at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Did she know of any Viennese families who had received Chinese visas? Markon couldn’t remember any but promised to search her archives.

Soon afterwards, she got back to Saul. She had found someone in her records—an Eric Goldstaub. Hew as in his mid-seventies, living near Toronto, Canada. She even had a phone number.

Excited, Saul phoned Manli with the news. She rushed over to his shop.

“You see,” he said, “it was b’sherrt,” a Yiddish word for destiny.

Saul dialled Toronto. The man who answered still had a slight accent.

After Saul explained why he was calling, Goldstaub said he had never met the Chinese consul and didn’t know who he was. Saul told him his name was Feng Shan Ho. “I have his daughter with me here. Would you like to talk to her?”

Goldstaub was stunned.

“I never had the chance to talk to your father,” he told Manli. “I’m so grateful to him.”

Goldstaub began telling his story.

He was 17, he said, a happy-go-lucky secondary school student in Vienna whose world came crashing down in 1938. He was forced to scrub the streets with a toothbrush and to give the Heil Hitler salute at school After all Jewish students were forced to quit school, Goldstaub trudged from consulate to consulate, looking to escape, but no-one would give him a visa.

“Jews weren’t wanted anywhere,” Goldstaub said. Then he passed the Chinese consulate on Beethoven Place. “I had never thought about going to China.”

To his surprise, there would be no problem getting a visa. So he asked for 20—enough for his parents and himself as well as his relatives.

The Goldstaubs booked passage on an Italian ship leaving on December 20, 1938. But on November 10—the very same day that Feng Shan Ho stared down the Gestapo—Goldstaub and his father were arrested.

“But we were lucky,” Goldstaub said. “We had our visas and ship tickets; they let us go. Those visas saved our lives.”

Before they hung up, Saul asked if Goldstaub had one of the visas. Goldstaub promised to send one.

About a month later, a package from Canada arrived in San Francisco. Inside was an Austrian passport issued to Oskar Fiedler, Goldstaub’s uncle and stamped with a large red “J” indicating he was Jewish. The first thing Manli noticed was that Oskar Fiedler was born on September 10, 1901, the same day as her father. Carefully turning the yellowing pages, she found his visa to China. It was dated July 20, 1938—and had a serial number: 1193.

Eric Saul told Manli they would find others, and find them they did—scattered all over the world. In July 1999, they met Hedy Durlester in Santa Rosa, California. She was three when her parents fled Vienna.

From her father’s autobiography, Manli learned that the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, Chen Jie, had ordered her father not to issue visas to Jews. He wanted to preserve friendly relations with Germany.

But Ho ignored the order. The visa her father had issued to Durlester’s father was dated exactly a month before the one received by Eric Goldstaub’s uncle. Comparing the two serial numbers, Manli saw that 900 visas had been issued in one month alone.

Later, her brother Monto found a report, written by her father’s successor, about these visas. Until Ho left Vienna in May 1940, the Chinese Consulates had given out an average of 400 to 500 a month. Her father had saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives.

One of them, Hans Kraus, waited vainly in the line outside the Chinese embassy for days. Desperate, he saw Ho’s car and thrust his papers into the open window. Kraus received a visa a few days later.

Another, Kalman Singer, had been refused entry to 62 countries until Ho authorised his family’s visas. They would board the last ship sailing to the United States from Europe. All their relatives were killed. Kalman’s son, Israel Singer is now secretary general of the World Jewish Congress in New York. “It shows you,” he says, “just what one man can do—save a life and create a new generation.”

Sitting in the auditorium at Yad Vashem last January, Susie Margalit, 76, thought about the Chinese man who was being honoured. Her father had been imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp. Her mother was told that he would be released on one condition: that he leave the country within 24 hours. There was only one consul in Vienna who would help—Feng Shan Ho.

After the war, Susie Margalit had emigrated to Israel and helped establish a kibbutz where she still lived with two of her three children and eight of her ten grandchildren. She’d invited Manli to visit them after the ceremony.

“Every time I meet another person who he helped, it’s as if he lives on through them,” says Manli. She calls these people her mishpocheh, a Yiddish word meaning “family.”

Near the Sea of Galilee in the foothills of Mount Tabor, Manli’s family was just about to grow even larger.

Boston Globe Article on Feng Shan Ho

“Feng-Shan Ho issued visas to hundreds and possibly thousands of Jews who were desperate to flee the Nazis.”

By Globe Staff writer, Charles M. Sennott

JERUSALEM -- In 1938, as Austria was descending into the deep moral darkness of Nazi rule, a small light of humanity filtered through, and that light was recognized yesterday at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial.

A ceremony honored the late Feng-Shan Ho, the Chinese consul general in Vienna from 1938 to 1940, who was formally bestowed with the title "Righteous Among the Nations" yesterday for deflying orders from his superiors and secretly issuing visas to hundreds and possibly thousands of Jews who were desperate to flee the Nazis.

The story of Ho's quiet heroism six decades ago probably would have been lost to history had it not been for a single sentence written in his obituary, a chance phone phone call, and then a dogged investigation by his daughter.

Ho's daughter, Man-li HO, 50, a former Boston Globe reporter, wrote the obituary for her father, which was published in the Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle after his death at the age of 96 on Sept. 28, 1997. She included in the obituary a passing reference to the fact that Ho had helped save Jews on the eve of World War II.

Man-li said she did not know the specifics of what her father had done. He never talked about it much, other than a few passing references, she said. His work was briefly stated in an autobiography he wrote on his life as a diplomat over 40 years of service for China and, after the revolution, for the Chinese Nationalists who fled to Taiwan. He had never been reunited with any of the survivors he helped escape.

"It didn't surprise me that he never mentioned this," said Man-li, who along with her older brother, Mon-to, accepted the award. "To him, helping human beings in distress was something that any person would do."

A few days after the death of her father, Man-li, who lives in Arrowsic, Maine, and works for the Boston-based executive search firm Isaacson Miller, was in San Francisco. She had stayed on after the funeral service to care for her 90-year-old mother when she received a phone call from Eric Saul, director of the San Francisco-based "Visas for life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats."

For years, Saul had searched for information on 100 diplomats who he estimated had saved 250,000 European Jews during the Holocaust. Saul had read the elder Ho's obituary and wanted to know whether Man-li had any more information on her father.

Thus began Man-li's research. As she pored over books and old files, worked the Internet, and consulted with Saul, she began to piece together the story.

Nazi Germany annexed Austria in March 1938. Ho ---- the Chinese consul general in Vienna, where the majority of Austria's 180,000 Jews lived --- watched as Hitler paraded through the streets and received a fanatical welcome.

With the takeover, the Austrians eagerly and efficiently pursued the Nazis' plans, and an office established under Adolf Eichmann to expel Austria's Jews sought to make the country a model for the Nazis' systematic persrcution.

At the time, many Western countries, including the United States, restricted immigration. In Palestine, the British Mandate government was restricting the influx of Jews, largely because of pressure from the Arab world.

As a result, Jews were desperate for any way out. Ho would help Jews who came to him by issuing entry visas to Shanghai. Though Shanghai was then under Japanese occupation, no alliance had been made with Germany, and no visa was needed to enter. But before the Nazis would allow them to leave, Jews needed a valid visa as proof of emigration.

Ho was under orders from his superior, the Chinese ambassador in Berlin, not to issue too many visas, so as not to anger the Germans or the Austrians.

As Man-li would later learn, some of the Jews actually traveled to Shanghai by boat from Italy or over land through the Soviet Union. From there, many went on to Australia and other locations. Others simply used the visas to get out of Austria and then emigrated to Canada, Latin America, and Palestine.

One of the people who was saved by Ho was Frida Rogel, 68, who was on hand for the ceremony honoring him yesterday. She was a 7-year-old girl in 1940, when her parents, Joseph and Paula, received the visa from Ho. They spent the next nine years in Shanghai, until in 1949 they emigrated to Israel, which had just finished the war for its independence. Today she lives on a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee with her husband. She has two sons and two grandchildren.

"I would like to thank him for saving our lives," Rogel said, as she walked with Man-li through Yad Vashem's forest at the foot of Mount Herzl. There, as warm sunlight filtered through towering pines, a marble monument engraved with the name Feng Shan Ho was unveiled.

(Credit of the above article goes to Globe Staff writer, Charles M. Sennott.)

Visas for Life Curates Exhibition on Ambassador Gilberto Bosques

Gilberto Bosques, the “Mexican Schindler” honored

July, 9, 2007

[Excerpt downloaded 2/9/08 from http://mexfiles.wordpress.com/category/ciudad-de-mexico/santa-maria-de-la-ribera/]

One of the heros of the Mexican diplomatic corps is being honored with an exhibit at the Museo Histórico Judío y del Holocausto Tuvie Maizel (Acapulco 70, Condesa, D.F.). Arturo Jimenez of Jornada wrote about the “Mexican Schindler”

He is often called “The Mexican Schindler” for his work during the Second World War, when as Mexico’s Consul General in France, he aided 40,000 refuges – Spanish Republicans, French Jews, Lebanese and others facing persecution, among them leaders of the European opposition and members of the antifascist resistence.

Described as “a Mexican hero” or a “savior” or simply “brave,” he spent a year as a prisoner of war of the Germans, where – together with his family and collaborators – his dignified attitude was the epitome of Mexican diplomacy of the era, gaining even the respect of his jailers.

His name was Gilberto Bosques, born in 1892 in Chiatla, Puebla. In his 103 year lifetime, he was a revolucionary, a congressman, an educator, a reporter, a writer, a diplomat and, above all else, a humanist and patriot: but somewhat forgotten until now.

For everything he was, the Jewish community in Mexico has decided to mount a photographic exhibit in Bosques’ honor, the best way to teach about our tradition of asylum and solidarity.

Embajador Gilberto Bosques: un hombre de todos los tiempos (Ambassador Gilberto Bosques: a man for all times) opened last week at the Museo Histórico Judío y del Holocausto Tuvie Maizel (Acapulco 70, Condesa).

In 88 photos, the exposition covers the life of Gilberto Bosques from his birth to his death in 1995. The images and information sheets are organized in 25 panels, and include photos of the almost unknown French Holocaust.

All the images are copies from the Bosques family archives. The museum has plans to show the exhibit in other locations. The curator, Erick Saúl, of the United States, said he is “historical curator, not a museum specialist,” spent two years working on the Tuvie Maizel museum exhibit.

Saving lives, raising spirits

The exposition includes images from throughout Bosques’ long and varied career: his participation in the 1910 Revolution when he was 17; as a Puebla and later Federal legislator working on labor issues in the 1920s and 30s; his activities as as an educational and political reformer and his career as editor of the Government paper, El Nacional.

His diplomatic career began at shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, when he was tasked with carrying out the foreign policy of presidents Lázaro Cárdenas and then Manuel Avila Camacho.

Under the leadership of Mexican Minister to France, Luis I. Rodríguez, Bosques embarked on a series of adventures in his quest to obtain visas and safe-conduct passes for those persecuted by the Germans in France, even as he moved the diplomatic mission from Paris to other places, eventually coming to Marseilles.

In the French port, he used his role as Mexican Consul General to rent two chateaux (Reynarde and Montegrande) to house and protect hundreds of refugees marked for deportation to concentration and extermination camps, while he arranged for their exit. In the chateaux, he organized artistic activities to “raise the spirit” of the persecuted.

In Marseilles, the Mexican Ambassador had to confront open hostility from pro-German French “authorities”, Gestapo spies, the government of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco as well as the Japanese diplomats who had offices in the same building as the Mexican delegation.

Bosques resisted them all. The French and – above all – the Germans, until on his recommendation, Mexico broke relations with both countries in 1943. The Gestapo violently assaulted the Mexican delegation, robbing money from a strongbox and taking the diplomat, his wife and three children and forty staff members into custody. They were sent to Bad Godesberg and locked in a hotel for the next year, which he spent organizing art programs. He above all upheld his dignity and the dignity of Mexico. He told the German bureaucrats:

“We have read the rules you have laid down for Mexican personnel and will abide by them. However, as Mexico and Germany are at war, we expect to be treated as prisoners of war, and will accept no special consideration due to age or other condition, but only those accorded to such prisoners.”

In 1944, the Mexican were liberated and repatriated in a prisoner exchange with the Germans who were held in the concentration center at Perote, Veracruz.

After the war, Bosques was appointed Mexican Minister to Portugal, Finland and Sweden. From 1953 to 1964, he served in Cuba. The photo shows Bosques with the Castro brothers (Raul and Fidel) and Ernesto Che Guevara.

Don Gilberto’s daughter, Laura Bosques, recalled her family’s experiences in Europe, which organizing tertuilias during their incarceration at Bad Godesburg which included reading from the poems of Rubén Darío at tertuilias.

“It was an era of intense drama. Along with everyone else, my parents and my brothers and I were aware of the suffering. The War was a tremendous thing that should never have happened, and the violence continues to this day.”

Laura Bosques spoke with us in the offices at the Centro Comunitario Nidjei Israel, where the Tuvie Maizel museum is also located. There, we also met press spokesman Enriqueta Loaeza Tovar and museum coordinator Leyla Malki, who summed up the man:

“Gilberto Bosques was a Mexican hero. With this exhibit the museum and the Jewish community in Mexico renders its homage, to one who did so much for us, and for his country.”

If you ever wondered how Ilsa and Victor Lazlo got to Casablanca, now you know… Gilberto Bosques arranged it.

Staff and Advisory Committee

Eric Saul Biography

Eric Saul served as founding curator of the Military Museum at the Presidio of San Francisco from 1973-1986. He has designed and circulated a number of exhibits on the contribution of minorities to the US military. Included among them were exhibits on African American soldiers, women in the military, Filipinos in the US Army, and the famous Japanese American soldiers of the 100th/442nd/MIS. The 100th/442nd/MIS exhibit eventually evolved into an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution entitled A More Perfect Union: Japanese Americans and the Constitution. For this exhibit, he was a technical advisor and consultant.

In 1980, Eric Saul co-founded of the Go For Broke 100^th/442^nd/MIS Foundation, later called the National Japanese American Historical Society (NJAHS). He was curator from 1981 to 1987, producing exhibits including East to America, which chronicled the story of Japanese American immigration to the United States. Eric Saul has also curated an exhibit entitled Unlikely Liberators on the Japanese American soldiers of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion who liberated the infamous Dachau Death March. In the 1990’s, Saul served as a consultant for the Japanese American National Museum. In 2002, he created a national project, the Kansha Project, to honor people who risked their reputations to help Japanese Americans during World War II.

Eric Saul has been Guest Curator at the Simon Wiesenthal Center – Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles since 1994. He curated a major exhibit entitled Art in the Holocaust. In 1998, he curated an exhibit entitled I am My Brother’s Keeper on Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal. He also curated Liberation: Revealing the Unspeakable, an exhibit on the liberation of the concentration camps by the allied Armies, 1944-45. This exhibit premiered at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in 1995.

In 1993, Eric Saul founded the Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project to document and honor Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara. In 1996, the project expanded to honor all diplomats who helped Jews during the war. Under his direction, the Visas for Life Project created six traveling exhibits on the topic of diplomatic rescue, which have been shown in more than 150 institutions worldwide, including: the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust; the United Nations headquarters in New York and Geneva; the headquarters of the European Union, the Japanese Parliament; Yad Vashem Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority; and the US Capitol in Washington, DC.

Saul has independently curated a number of additional traveling exhibits. In 1997, he created a series of traveling exhibits and programs on Chinese diplomat Dr. Feng Shan Ho. The exhibit traveled to numerous venues in the United States and to China on the 100^th anniversary of Dr. Ho’s birth. In 2000, Saul created another exhibit entitled Light One Candle: A Child's Diary of the Holocaust. The exhibit tells the story of Solly Ganor (Zalke Genkind), who was a survivor of the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania and the Landsberg-Kaufering concentration camps. It premiered in Detroit, Michigan, in 2001. In 2006, Saul created the exhibit A Man for All Times: The Story of Mexican Ambassador Gilberto Bosques and the Rescue of Jews in Marseilles in cooperation with the Tuvio Maizel Museum of the Holocaust and the Simon Wiesenthal Center – Museum of Tolerance. The exhibit opened in Mexico City at the Jewish Community Center, and then toured to the Mexican foreign ministry.

In 2006, the Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project became a nonprofit organization under the umbrella of the Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust, a nonprofit corporation (ISRAH). The mission expanded to document a comprehensive history of rescue, relief and altruism during the Holocaust. As Executive Director of ISRAH, Eric Saul continues to document rescue, and has nominated many individuals for the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

In 2007, Saul instituted a major research program to document and honor Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. Saul has created a major database of Jewish rescue organizations and Jewish rescuers. He is cooperating with two programs in Israel. He is currently preparing a traveling exhibit on Jewish rescue.

Eric Saul has been a consultant on numerous documentary films, including Yankee Samurai (1981), The Color of Honor (1982), Nisei Soldier (1984), and the Holocaust documentaries entitled Diplomats for the Damned (1999) and Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness (2000).

Eric Saul was an early consultant for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.

Eric Saul was the co-author of The Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906 (1982) and contributed to Go For Broke: The Story of the Japanese American Soldier in World War II (1981). He was coeditor of Yukiko Sugihara’s memoir, Visas for Life (1995). He also authored Unlikely Liberators: The Story of Chiune Sugihara and Japanese Americans of the 522^nd Field Artillery (1995).

Eric Saul is presently co-authoring a major new book on diplomatic rescue with historian Sir Martin Gilbert.

Advisory Committee

Abigail Bingham Endicott, daughter of US Vice Consul Hiram Bingham IV

Solly Ganor, Holocaust survivor, visa recipient, author

Agnes Hirschi, daughter of Swiss Consul Carl Lutz

Dr. Becky Kook, daughter of Peter H. Bergson (Hillel Kook)

Enrico Mantello, son of El Salvadoran Consul George Mandel Mantello

Peter Rosenblatt, nephew of US Ambassador Laurence Steinhardt

Mehmet Ülkümen, son of Turkish Consul General Selahattin Ülkümen

Louise von Dardel, niece of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg

Honorary Chairmen

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize laureate

José Ramos Horta, Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Holocaust survivor

Charitable Donations

The Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust, a nonprofit corporation (ISRAH) is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation (77-0662605). All donations are tax deductible, to the extent provided by law.

We are grateful for all donations to support the programs that honor rescuers of the Holocaust. Some of the activities your contributions can support are: ongoing research on diplomatic and public rescue; collecting materials, such as photographs and oral histories; publishing scholarly articles; and showing of exhibits, including: Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats; Light One Candle: A Child’s Diary of the Holocaust; Liberation: Revealing the Unspeakable; or other exhibits; production of Israeli State medals honoring diplomatic rescuers.

Please contact us if you are interested in making a charitable contribution to support the many programs of ISRAH. We would be glad to send you a prospective of programs that you might wish to support or endow.

Eric Saul

Executive Director and Curator

Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project

Institute for the Study of Rescue and Altruism in the Holocaust, a nonprofit corporation

Morgantown, West Virginia

Tel. (304) 599-0614

E-mail: VisasForLife@cs.com

Visas for Life:

The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats

Schedule of Events

An Exhibit Honoring

Diplomats Who Rescued Jews and Other Refugees

During the Holocaust, 1933-45

at Ellis Island and Statue of Liberty Museum

in Cooperation with

The National Park Service

and

American Jewish Committee

Wallenberg Society of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford

World Jewish Congress

Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith

Simon Wiesenthal Center, Museum of Tolerance

United Jewish Communities

Jewish National Fund

Jewish Foundation for the Righteous

Museum of Jewish Heritage

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society

American Foreign Service Association

US State Department

Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States

Thanks to Scandinavia

American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors

Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project

Eric Saul, Executive Director

[Schedule of events Ellis Island_02 17 2008.doc]

Visas for Life Exhibit Dedication Activities at Ellis Island Museum

The following is a schedule for the Visas for Life: The Righteous Diplomats exhibit opening programs at the Ellis Island Museum.

The leadership of the Jewish community and many organizations will be attending the exhibit opening programs. Members of the diplomatic community in New York, as well as other dignitaries, will also be attending.

We have also invited many of the Holocaust organizations and survivor groups in the New York area.

Look forward to seeing you at the programs.

Eric Saul

Executive Director

Visas for Life: The Righteous and Honorable Diplomats Project

Tel. 304-599-0614

E-mail: VisasForLife@cs.com

Schedule of Events

Sunday, March 30, 2008 –Visas for Life Exhibit Dedication on Ellis Island

Please wear comfortable clothing and shoes.

9:00 a.m. Please arrive at the Ellis Island ferry in Battery Park in time for the 9:00 am boat. You will need to purchase boat tickets to get to Ellis Island. The ticket office is in the Castle Clinton National Monument, adjacent to the boat dock. Round trip tickets are $12.00. If you miss the boat, the next boat is scheduled for 9:30. (If you take the 9:30 boat, however, you will be late for the morning ceremony.) You will need to go through security screening prior to boarding the boat. The boat trip takes approximately 45 minutes to Ellis Island. The first stop of the ferry is the Statue of Liberty. Do not disembark at this stop. The second stop is the Ellis Island National Historic Site. For more information about the ferry, call 212-269-5755 or visit their website at http://www.statuecruises.com/. (You can find additional information at www.nps.gov/stli.)

10:15 a.m. (approximate) Arrival at the dock, Ellis Island. Please ask Park rangers for directions to the auditorium for the Visas for Life ceremony.

10:30-11:00 a.m. Go directly to the auditorium for the Visas for Life exhibit opening ceremony. Please note that there is limited seating in this auditorium, so please take your invitations and go directly there.

11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Visas for Life exhibit opening ceremony. This program will include speeches by leaders of the Jewish community, presentation of certificates, and an award ceremony. In addition, there will be an excerpt of a professional musical play presented on Raoul Wallenberg. Kim Bingham, son of US diplomat Hiram Bingham IV, will be signing his new book, Courageous Dissent.

The following organizations will participate and honor the diplomats: the American Jewish Committee, the Wallenberg Society of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center – Museum of Tolerance, the World Jewish Congress, the United Jewish Communities, the Jewish National Fund, the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the American Foreign Service Association, the US State Department, Thanks to Scandinavia, the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, and the National Park Service.

12:30-12:45 p.m. Ribbon cutting for the Visas for Life exhibit. Everyone is invited. Families will cut the ribbon. The ribbon cutting ceremony will also be attended by embassies and diplomatic missions in New York.

12:30-1:30 p.m. Lunch (no host). Public cafeteria at Ellis Island. The cafeteria is located on the ground level. It has beautiful indoor and outdoor seating. It has a nice selection of sandwiches and soups.

1:30-2:30 p.m. The Raoul Wallenberg musical and presentations by family members of diplomats who were involved in the rescue of Jews in Hungary.

2:30-3:30 p.m. Tour of the Ellis Island Immigration Station museum by Park Service rangers. We will take a group portrait of all of the families and participants in the Registration Room.

4:00-5:30 p.m. Take ferry back to Manhattan. Ferries leave every 45 minutes. The last ferry is 5:15 p.m.

Monday, March 31, 2008 – Museum of Jewish Heritage and American Jewish Committee Reception

10:00-11:30 a.m. Tour of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, 35 Battery Place, New York (tel. 646-437-4200, www.mjhnyc.org).

This is one of the largest and most impressive Holocaust museums in the world. It is located in the Battery Park area of New York City, in lower Manhattan. We will have a courtesy VIP tour of the museum, including a special exhibition entitled “Daring the Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust.” This is a very moving exhibit about how Jews responded to unimaginable conditions during the Holocaust. As the museum points out, “their efforts powerfully refute the popular perception that Jews were passive victims.”

11:30-12:30 p.m. Lunch at Museum cafeteria (no host).

1:30-3:00 p.m. Afternoon historic program at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Families of diplomats will speak in this program.

To get to the Museum of Jewish Heritage by bus: M1, M6, M15 to Battery Park. M9, M20 to the Museum. By subway: 4/5 to Bowling Green, walk west along Battery Place. W/R to Whitehall Street, walk west along Battery Place. 1 to South Ferry, walk north along Battery Park/State Street, turn left and walk west on Battery Place. J/M/Z to Broad Street, walk one block west to Broadway, and then south to the corner of Battery Place and Bowling Green. Walk west on Battery Place.

Late afternoon. American Jewish Committee, 165 East 56^th Street (at 3^rd Avenue), New York. (Tel. 212-751-4000.)

We will be having a light reception at the offices of the American Jewish Committee for our families and dignitaries.

The American Jewish Committee, established in 1906 by American Jews deeply concerned about pogroms aimed at Russian Jews, determined that the best way to protect Jewish populations in danger would be to work towards a world in which all peoples were accorded respect and dignity.

Over 100 years later, AJC continues its efforts to promote pluralistic and democratic societies where all minorities are protected. AJC is an international think tank and advocacy organization that attempts to identify trends and problems early - and take action.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008 – Jewish History Center/YIVO and New York Tolerance Center

9:00 a.m. Take subway or taxi to the Jewish History Center, 15 West 16^th Street (between 5^th and 6^th Avenues), New York.

To get to the Jewish History Center by Subway:

4,5,6, L, N, Q, R, and W trains to the 14th Street and Union Square station.
F, V, L to the 14th Street and 6th Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) station.
1, 2, and 3 trains to the 14th Street and 7th Avenue station.

10:00-11:30 a.m. Tour and historic program of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research at the Jewish History Center,15 West 16^th Street, Tel. 917-606-8292. The program will be hosted by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (tel. 212-246-6080).

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the history and culture of Ashkenazi Jewry and to its influence in the Americas. Headquartered in New York City since 1940, today YIVO is the world's preeminent resource center for East European Jewish Studies; Yiddish language, literature and folklore; and the American Jewish immigrant experience. The YIVO Library holds over 360,000 volumes in 12 major languages, and the Archives contains more than 23,000,000 pieces, including manuscripts, documents, photographs, etc. YIVO offers a series of cultural events and films, and various scholarly publications. (