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Tag: Upstanders

Amid the rescuers, resisters

A nationwide Upstanders Canada keynote lecture to mark Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) last month reminded the Zoom audience that the belief that Jews simply cowered, while the atrocities around them were being committed during the Second World War, is erroneous.

“The idea of Jewish passivity is part of the narrative, but it is not the truth. Jews, individually and collectively, engaged in acts of resistance and rescue,” said Pat Johnson, founder of Upstanders Canada, at the start of the event.

That people should know this fact “is crucial,” said Johnson, “because it corrects a flawed narrative. It is crucial additionally, not only for Jews but for every person and every people in the world, to see the potential for resistance and courage against authoritarianism hatred and inhumanity.”

image - Jews Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust book coverThe April 27 event, titled Jews Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, was presented by Rinat Dushansky-Werbner. She was introduced by Moshe Gromb, author of a 15-volume series with the same title, which Dushansky-Werbner and Pnina Jacobi-Yahid translated into English from Hebrew. In her talk, Dushansky-Werbner, a member of the Action Committee for Recognizing Jews Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, highlighted several Jewish heroes during the Shoah – their names not widely known. 

“There were operations inside the death camps. There were people smuggling people across borders. They were hiding children in monasteries. They were falsifying documents,” Dushansky-Werbner said.

“The Jews were very, very creative, and tried to think of any possible way to save their brethren. Sadly, many of these Jewish rescuers were caught and murdered by the Nazis. Even though they could have escaped and saved themselves,” she said, “most of them decided not to do so. [They] decided to stand where they are, and try and rescue as many people as possible.”

The people discussed represented a range of backgrounds, ages, geographic locations and levels of religious observance, and were but examples from a much larger number of Jews who took on tremendous risks and used remarkable ingenuity to rescue other Jews during the Holocaust. Thus far, Dushansky-Werbner’s action committee has collected information on more than 2,500 Jewish rescuers and documented more than 50 rescue methods.  

Many of the Jewish rescuers, Dushansky-Werbner said, did not see themselves as great heroes, but rather as people who did what they were compelled to do, and saddened they could not do more.

“There is something very humble about these people,” she said.

Jews rescued other Jews wherever the Germans operated – throughout Europe, North Africa and even the Philippines –  and their operations began once the Nazis rose to power and continued throughout and after the war. Often, their operations involved collaborations with non-Jews.

In Belarus, four brothers named Bielski – Tuvia, Zus (Alexander Zeisal), Asael and Aron – founded a partisan unit, a wandering communal rescue army, that established a family camp in the Naliboki Forest. The camp operated for more than two years during the war, moving occasionally from place to place in the forest, and included a synagogue, a school, a courthouse, a clinic, an armoury and more. It is estimated that the Bielski brothers rescued 1,236 Jews in what became known as the “Jerusalem of the Forests.” Their story is among the more celebrated of Jewish rescuers and was turned into a 2008 film, Defiance, starring Daniel Craig.  

In France, the Loinger family, led by George, who passed away in 2018 at the age of 108, smuggled hundreds of Jewish children across the border to Switzerland, while his wife, Flora, managed the houses in which they hid Jewish children. 

George would play soccer with the children. When the ball flew over to the other side of the border, one or two children would be sent to safety to the other side without the local guard noticing, Dushansky-Werbner explained.

George’s sisters also helped. Fanny hid children in monasteries; Emme prepared abandoned monasteries for Jewish orphans and ran one of the children’s houses; the youngest, Ivette, 13, rode with Jewish children on trains, hiding their money and keeping them calm during the journey. 

French pantomime Marcel Marceau and his brother Alain – who were George’s cousins – forged papers for Jews on the run and helped George smuggle Jewish children out of France.

“Marcel would help keep them calm and would just basically be the clown. He would be like a mother, a father, a brother, and he would make them laugh. And this is how many of them stayed calm and agreed to go from one place to another,” said Dushansky-Werbner, who went on to share another story of heroism.

In Volos, Greece, Rabbi Moshe Shimon Pesach was ordered by a German commander to draw up a list of all the Jews in the city. He turned to his friend, Metropolitan Joachim Alexopoulos, who recommended the Jews leave the city immediately. 

At the age of 74, the rabbi gathered the members of the community and led them to the hills surrounding Volos with the help of the metropolitan and the city’s mayor, and hid them in homes and other buildings. This effort would save 746 of the 882 Jews in Volos.

Dushansky-Werbner ended her talk with the words of Marion Pritchard, a non-Jew who rescued Jews in the Netherlands: “If we do not acknowledge the bravery of those Jewish rescuers who, if caught, were in graver danger than the Righteous Among Nations, that would be a distortion of Holocaust history. It also adds to the false notion that the Jews were led like lambs to the slaughter as cowards. This is far from the truth,” said Pritchard.

Upstanders Canada is a national organization that seeks to mobilize primarily non-Jewish Canadians to stand with the Jewish people and against antisemitism. For more information, visit upstanderscanada.com. 

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Posted on May 30, 2025May 29, 2025Author Sam MargolisCategories NationalTags education, heroism, Holocaust, Jews Who Rescued Jews, Marion Pritchard, Rinat Dushansky-Werbner, Upstanders, Yom Hashoah
Standing up against hatred

Standing up against hatred

Pat Johnson, founder of Upstanders Canada. (photo by Paul Tillotson)

There has been a widening split between many progressive movements and the Jewish community in recent decades, according to Pat Johnson, the founder of Upstanders Canada. His Vancouver-based organization aims to encourage Canadians – especially non-Jewish Canadians – to stand against hatred of all kinds, but particularly against antisemitic words and deeds.

“You can make whatever justifications you want about what is wrong with Israel or criticize the government, but if a progressive movement finds itself at odds with 80% of Jewish people, then that is a sign that something is wrong with your worldview,” said Johnson, a member of the Jewish Independent’s editorial board.

“I have been watching as many people within the Jewish community became skeptical of the left – which their parents had built in this country. It is a betrayal.”

Long involved with progressive causes, such as gay rights, gender equality and interfaith dialogue, Johnson observed a rift forming amid the left and the Jewish community at the time of the Second Intifada that began in the Middle East in 2000.

“When Yasser Arafat turned to violence and the world, led by progressives, sided with the violence instead of demanding he return to the negotiating table, that is when the global left went off the rails,” he posited.

Johnson maintains that the North American left, with few exceptions, has let down the Jewish people. “If you do not believe in the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and that is the only people you do not support, then there is a problem in your movement.”

An ardent supporter of Israel, this was the genesis of his cognitive dissonance with the left. “I am a progressive Canadian and a fervent Zionist and there is nothing contradictory about that,” said Johnson, who is not Jewish. “What is contradictory is calling yourself a progressive and not supporting the Jewish people’s right to self-determination. I might not fit on the left any more but that is not because of me. It is because of them.”

The tipping point for Johnson happened in October 2018 on a return flight from Israel. On the airplane, he learned of the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. He realized then the need to launch Upstanders Canada.

“I thought somebody has to do something, I guess that someone could be me. We can’t pretend any more that this is not a serious problem in North America,” he said. “The Jewish community has always had to fight their battles themselves while progressives are standing up as allies to every socio-cultural group except Jews.”

An example Johnson uses to demonstrate this point is how many progressives have taken it upon themselves to disagree with the definition of antisemitism developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. This, he asserts, they would not do with any other group. “When you treat the Jewish people differently than any other group in society – that is problematic,” he contended.

Antisemitism can be a “perfect prejudice,” he added, as Jews are deemed powerful by many, including those on the left. Thus, though most progressives may think antisemitism is not right and not view themselves as antisemitic, there is an element of “sticking it to the man and that the Jewish people will be just fine.”

“There is a theory that whatever happens to the Jewish people happened because they brought it on themselves and it is not something we say with any other group. Progressives will never say that any other victim of a hate crime brought that act upon themselves,” said Johnson.

A solution, Johnson believes, is for supporters of Israel to stop arguing with the people who will never agree with them. Instead, what should be done is to identify and mobilize the people who agree with Israel’s right to self-determination and don’t need convincing.

To Upstanders Canada, antisemitism is not a Jewish problem – it is a non-Jewish problem with serious implications for Jewish people. It is a problem created by non-Jewish people that needs to be confronted by non-Jewish people, said Johnson.

Upstanders Canada takes no position on issues that deserve to be resolved by Jewish people or the state of Israel, he said. Rather, it is based on the belief that Jewish people have a right to live safely and free from fear everywhere in the world.

The organization is currently building its database of allies. They welcome everyone, including those in the evangelical community and those communities in which antisemitism has surfaced, such as political parties on the left and trade unions.

In the past few months, Johnson’s letters have appeared in several newspapers across the country, reminding Canadians to be vigilant in the fight against bigotry and hatred.

Johnson has a long-standing connection to the Jewish community. In addition to being a regular contributor to the Independent, he has worked with numerous organizations: Hillel BC, Canadian Jewish Congress, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Louis Brier Home and Hospital.

“I don’t have the short answer for how I wound up in the Jewish community, so I just say bashert [destiny],” Johnson said.

For more information, visit the website upstanderscanada.com.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Format ImagePosted on July 8, 2022July 7, 2022Author Sam MargolisCategories LocalTags anti-hate, antisemitism, Canada, interfaith, Pat Johnson, tikkun olam, Upstanders
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