THE HOLOCAUST AND THE UNITED NATIONS OUTREACH PROGRAMME

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The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme
his actions; Henrietta Samuel who spoke about Norwegian Ingebjorg
Sletten-Fosstvedt, who helped Jews escape to neutral Sweden; Hulda
Campiano, who gave testimony about the help her family received
in Italy by members of the Catholic clergy, as well as lay persons;
and other witnesses who spoke about the rescue of the Jewish community
in Denmark. In 1962, as the Eichmann trial came to a close,
the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem decided to launch
a programme under which non-Jewish persons who risked their life
to save Jews would be publicly acknowledged and honoured by the
State of Israel. A commission chaired by a Supreme Court justice
was nominated in order to establish the criteria for this award. This
public commission would function for as long as there was credible
evidence identifying rescuers of Jews to be honoured.
The first chairman to be appointed to the
“In 1962, as the
Commission was Supreme Court Justice
Eichmann trial came to Moshe Landau, who presided over the Eichmann
trial. He was succeeded by Supreme
a close, the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Memorial in Court Justice Moshe Bejski, who had been
Jerusalem decided to rescued by Oskar Schindler, and who had
launch a programme also given testimony at the Eichmann trial.
under which non-
The Commission decided that the basic criteria
that must be met in order to be eligible
Jewish persons who
risked their lives to save
for the “Righteous” title was that a person
Jews would be publicly
needed to have risked his own life and safety
acknowledged and
by attempting to save at least one Jewish
honoured by the State
person, with no material advantage to the
of Israel.”
rescuer, and that the rescuer’s story could be
corroborated by the beneficiary party. Each
rescuer that met this criteria would then be
entitled to a tree in his or her name located in a specially constructed
grove at Yad Vashem, named Avenue of the Righteous. This avenue
leads to the Holocaust museum, which holds archived records of the
horrific events of the Final Solution. The trees are there to remind
visitors that the final word was to be left to the rescuers and not to