Learning about the Holocaust

1. RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS
ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

2. WHO IS RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE
NATIONS
Righteous among the Nations is an
official title bestowed by Yad Vashem
on behalf of the State of Israel and
the Jewish people upon non-Jews
who risked their lives to save Jews
from the Holocaust.

3. KIND OF HELP PROVIDED BY THE RIGHTEOUS
AMONG THE NATIONS
• Hideouts for Jews in their homes or
properties.
• Falsification of identity and document
forgery.
• Smuggling and escape aid.
• Children rescue.

4. CRITERIA FOR THE RECOGNITION
•The recipient saved one or more Jews from death threat or
deportation to death camps.
•The recipient risked their life, freedom or status.
•The recipient was originally driven by the only purpose of
helping persecuted Jews and not by any kind of reward.
•The existence of evidence of the action through accounts from
the assisted, or unequivocal documents confirming the nature
and circumstances of the rescue.

5. HOW THEY ARE BESTOWED
The recipients are awarded a specially struck medal and a
certificate of honour, as well as the privilege of having their
names added to the Wall of Honour in the Garden of the
Righteous at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.
The Yad Vashem Law authorises the institution to “confer
honorary citizenship upon the Righteous among the Nations,
and if they have passed away, the commemorative citizenship of
the State of Israel in recognition of their actions”.

6. GALICIA-SPAIN-FRANCE-POLAND-
PORTUGAL
 Lola Touza (Galicia)
 Ángel Sanz Briz (Spain)
 Albert Le Lay (France)
 Henryk Slawik (Poland)
 Arístides de Sousa Mendes (Portugal)

7. LOLA, AMPARO and JULIA TOUZA
The Touza sisters lived in the town of Ribadavia (Ourense), the last stop in the
Jewish exodus to Portugal. Chased by the Gestapo, the Jews were running away
from the nightmare of the “shoah”. Lola and her sisters would wait for them at the
station kiosk they were running.
Lola, Amparo and Julia offered food to the Jewish fugitives before organising their
escape, “crossing the river Miño in the dark of the night” to Portuguese soil.
Their recognition as “Righteous among the Nations” is underway.

9. ÁNGEL SANZ BRIZ
Called The Angel of Budapest (Zaragoza 1910,
Rome 1980), Ángel Sanz Briz was a Spanish
diplomat. In 1942 he was appointed chargé
d’affaires at the Spanish embassy in
Budapest. When Adolf Eichmann arrived in
the city to supervise the extermination of the
Hungarian Jews, Briz decided to provide
Spanish legal documents to Sephardic Jews
and negotiate with the Hungarian authorities
their accommodation in a safe place. He
managed to save about 5,200 Jews.
He was recognised as “Righteous among the
Nations” in 1989.

11. ALBERT LE LAY
Albert Le Lay was French customs chief at
Canfranc railway station, in the central
Pyrenees in Huesca. He saved “many
people’s lives” during World War II until
he was discovered by the Gestapo, from
which he run away in a most unbelievable
way, eventually fleeing aboard a ship.
After the end of the war, he refused
honours and rewards and communicated
to his family his desire to keep his former
activities secret. One of his grandchildren
broke the deal recently and revealed the
major feat his grandfather had achieved.

13. HENRYK SLAWIK
He was born in the small village of Szeroka
(1894). Upon graduating secondary school, he
joined the Polish military. After serving time
there, he went to the town of Silesia, where he
became part of the police force. A member of
a right-wing faction of the Polish Socialist
Party, he also served as editor of a Socialist
newspaper.
In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland,
Henryk joined a mobilized police battalion that
was part of the Krakow Army fighting the
Nazis. On September 15, Henryk's battalion
retreated toward the Hungarian border. Upon
crossing the border, Henryk was placed in a
refugee camp and then he was taken to
Budapest where he began his work rescuing
refugees.

15. ARÍSTIDES DE SOUSA MENDES
(1885-1954)