Righteous Among the Nations

But my mother, what happened is that my mother was taken to the southwest of France to the free zone, and she hid on a farm.

You've heard about those righteous among the nations, you know, the Gentiles who helped Jews during the war, and they were recognized by Israel as righteous.

as righteous among the nations.

Their name is listed somewhere at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Israel.

And so she hid on a farm for the last two years of the war and was protected by that family of Gentiles who in 2013 were recognized, and their name is in Israel at Yad Vashem, as righteous among the nations because they protected my mother and two of her cousins.

So she survived the war, came back to that same house in Paris, met my father, got married, had my sister and I, and that's the short version.

I have a book actually coming out of our family history.

Mm-hmm.

And another famous figure from Montella is Giovanni Palatucci, who is remembered as Righteous Among the Nations because he was a rescuer during the Holocaust, and he helped the Jews- Wow ... during World War II.

Wow.

So there's lots of different history that, that would be meaningful to your- Mm-hmm ... family, um, in a way that isn't meaningful maybe to other families- Mm-hmm ...

He continued a long career in the diplomatic service for West Germany.

In 1971, his actions were rigorously verified, and he was officially honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center located in Jerusalem.

So we recognize the individual whistleblower, but how does history accurately categorize and honor the decentralized network? Like, how do you issue commendations to a medical student on a bicycle, a fisherman on the Arizona and a neighbor paying rent?

You cannot pin a medal on an entire phone book.