Middle Eastern and North African Heroes of the Holocaust

Hitler and the Nazis in Paris

Abdul-Wahab: In Brothels and Barnyards

Anny Boukris abruptly awoke to the sound of whispering voices in the olive oil factory she now called home. The conversation was frantic. Anny made out her father’s voice, tense and fraught with worry, but did not recognize the fearful speech of the man warning her father of immediate danger. Only weeks before, Nazi troops had entered the Tunisian coastal city of Mahdia and confiscated the Boukris’ property and belongings, turning their beautiful home into a shelter for military personnel. Amid the disorder, Anny’s father Jacob arranged for the family to take refuge in the nearby factory. But this safe haven was now under imminent threat. Regaining his composure, Anny heard the mysterious man say that everyone should come with him at once and that he would provide safe accommodation.[1]

Convinced by the sincerity of his voice, the extended Boukris family and several neighbors left their makeshift homes in the factory, following the man whose name Anny would later learn was Khaled Abdul-Wahab, a local Arab notable. His father was a celebrated Tunisian public servant and close friend of Anny’s father. According to Anny’s recollection, “by shuttling back and forth through the night, Abdul-Wahab eventually managed to get everyone settled at his family’s farm in the small village of Tlelsa, about twenty miles west of Mahdia.”[2]

The Boukrises, like many of their neighbors, were Jewish. With Germany’s victory over France in 1940, Jews in Tunisia and other French-held territories in North Africa became increasingly vulnerable. When German troops took direct control of eastern Tunisia in late 1942, a much the situation for Tunisian Jews was grim. Under Nazi control, Jews experienced arbitrary arrests, confiscations, forced labor, and deportations and were forced to wear a yellow Star of David badge for public identification.[3]  Many Jews in North Africa were sent to forced labor camps across the region, which at one point numbered over 60; thousands more had homes, farms, and property confiscated. A great many lost their professions and life savings.[4]

The night that Abdul-Wahab hurriedly decided to help the Boukrises was like any other. Abdul-Wahab visited the local brothel the Nazi troops had established for their personal enjoyment. Smiling infectiously, Abdul-Wahab poured another round of spirits for an inebriated German officer. Concerned for the safety of the young women in the brothel, Abdul-Wahab did what he could to protect them. On this night, it meant once again encouraging a German officer to drink too much alcohol, so that he would be unable to take advantage of any of the women. In the course of the extravagant drinking session, Abdul-Wahab discovered that the German officer intended to force Anny Boukris’s mother, Odette, into the local brothel. Motivated by a desire to protect Anny’s mother, Abdul-Wahab acted swiftly, rushing the Boukris family and others to his farm in the middle of the night where the family remained safely hidden until the end of the war.[5]

Looking back at Abdul-Wahab’s brave and compassionate willingness to help, Anny Boukris’s parents expressed the sincere belief that “Khaled himself could have been killed if the German [at the brothel] found out.”[6] Because of Abdul-Wahab’s willingness to risk his own life, the Boukrises and others survived Nazi occupation and persecution.

Ülkümen: Transformed into Turks

Elsewhere in the Mediterranean basin, Selahattin Ülkümen, Consul General of Turkey on the island of Rhodes during World War II, rushed frantically to the local Nazi headquarters. The year was 1944, and German forces were tightening their hold on the island following Italy’s surrender to the Allied powers in 1943.[7] It is said that after the Nazi takeover of the island, “fear prevailed everywhere,”[8] especially among the island’s Jewish population. Yet at this time, many had not yet heard about the Nazi’s atrocities against the Jews because the Italians “had confiscated all the radios so effectively that the Jews knew nothing of the fate reserved for their race on the continent.”[9]

In July 1944, Nazi commanders mandated that all Jewish men and boys over age sixteen on the island register at its local headquarters.[10] The Jews of Rhodes complied with this demand, not knowing that the vast majority of those who registered would be deported to mainland Greece, after which they would be loaded onto trains destined for Auschwitz, the Polish concentration and extermination camp.[11] Almost as soon as the island’s Jewish men arrived to register, German soldiers surrounded them, taking away their identity cards and work permits and forcing them into the building’s basement.[12]

Upon arriving at the Nazi headquarters, Ülkümen encountered unbridled pandemonium among the captive Jews. “The scenes of utter distress that he witnessed overwhelmed him, and he decided to act.”[13] Thinking quickly, Ülkümen conducted a census to determine who among them could be said to be – in any possible way – of Turkish origin.[14] Afterwards, Ülkümen clandestinely distributed Turkish identity cards to the wives of each of the men who were in any way of Turkish origin or who could pass as such.[15]

Ülkümen then approached Gestapo officials to bargain on behalf of the Jews who he had provided with “proof” of Turkish citizenship. Because Turkey was on neutral terms with Germany, Ülkümen argued that any harm to a Turkish citizen would violate the terms of neutrality and demanded that the Germans release all Turkish citizens in their possession, whatever their race or religion. As a result of his efforts, the island’s Gestapo commander relented, releasing those Jews for whom Ülkümen had lobbied.

Through his tireless efforts, Ülkümen secured the release of 42 Jews. Only thirteen of these survivors were actually Turkish citizens; the remaining survivors had varying degrees of Turkish connections, usually spouses or relatives who were Italian or Greek citizens. Mathilde Turiel, a Turkish citizen and the wife of an Italian-Jewish citizen from Rhodes who Ülkümen rescued, remembered the bravery of his efforts. “Thanks to Mr. Ülkümen, my husband was freed! What joy, if you can only realize, what a joy that was! Mr. Ülkümen had done something extraordinary – yes, extraordinary! And in addition to the Turkish Jews, he succeeded in saving twenty-five Italian Jews, whom he passed off as Turks, whom he had in some way transformed into Turks.”[16]

While Ülkümen protected a number of lives through his daring efforts, there were many more who perished because they could not pass for Turkish citizens. In total, 1,673 Jews were deported from Rhodes to Auschwitz. Of these individuals, only 150 survived.[17] Although he could not prevent the Nazi authorities from harassing the island’s remaining Jewish community, “Ülkümen continued to provide protection and moral support to those whom he had rescued and who remained on the island.”[18] As Germany’s position in the war deteriorated in the early part of 1945, the Nazi commander on Rhodes ordered the remaining Jewish community to leave for Turkey by boat. The Jewish community left their homes on the island behind and arrived safely on Turkey’s shores at the port of Marmaris, where they were finally free of Nazi persecution.

Ülkümen’s assistance to the Jewish population of Rhodes came at great personal loss. Before the war’s end, German authorities uncovered his deception and arrested him for his efforts to protect the island’s Jews. As punishment, they sent him to mainland Greece to be held in confinement until the end of the war. Tragically, the Germans then ordered airplanes to “[bomb] the Turkish consulate, killing Ülkümen’s pregnant wife Mihrinissa Hanım as well as two other employees.”[19] Despite his mother’s death, Ülkümen’s son, Mehmet, survived the air raid thanks to the timely work of local doctors. For Ülkümen’s mother-in-law, though, the pain of losing her daughter was too much, and she committed suicide shortly after the attack. After being released at the end of the war, Ülkümen returned home to Turkey.

On December 13, 1989, Yad Vashem granted Ülkümen the title “Righteous Among the Nations” for his courageous actions to save many of the Jews of Rhodes during the Holocaust.[20] In explaining his actions, Ülkümen stated, “I believe in God, I am a Muslim, and I did nothing but listen to my conscience. My conscience pricked. I am a Muslim, yes, but, above all, I am a man who believes in humanism, in humanity. I put myself in the place of those who would have been the victims. My conscience told me to do what I could.”[21]

Sardari: Jews as Aryans

Early in the morning on June 14, 1940, Iranian diplomat Abdol-Hossein Sardari awoke to the sight of German tanks rolling down the streets of Paris. The French government and military were gone, replaced by lines of Nazi troops marching through the City of Lights. Sardari was now living under Nazi rule. Like his Turkish counterpart, however, Sardari refused to let fear and long odds overrule his conscience, and seized an opportunity to protect Jews about to be sent to their death.

As the Nazis consolidated their grip on France, French Jews, including over 100 Jewish families originally from Iran and surrounding countries, were required to register with the police.[22] As their property was seized and they began to fear for their lives, many of those families managed to get in touch with Sardari. Hearing their heart-wrenching appeals for help, the diplomat determined to do whatever he could to save the Iranian Jews and their non-Iranian Jewish friends in France. Although the Iranian Embassy had relocated to Vichy along with the puppet French government, Sardari realized that, as the highest Iranian representative in Nazi controlled Paris, he had an opportunity and responsibility to protect Iranian and Central Asian Jews.[23]

Sardari saw his best chance of doing so in manipulating the Nazis’ own racial theories.[24] In the lead-up to the war, the Nazi Party’s obsession with proving German racial superiority had led them to seize upon the term “Aryan,” which originally referred to light-skinned Indo-Iranians that settled in what is now the Middle East millennia ago. Iran’s government, anxious to maintain good relations with Germany, had played up their supposed racial kinship. Sardari realized that Iranian Jewish communities in Paris shared linguistic and cultural ties that enabled him to argue they were all jugutis, descendants of Persian Jews who could be considered Aryan. Sardari knew that the Nazis’ false ideas about race could be leveraged to protect Iranian and Central Asian Jews. Making use of his education as a lawyer, Sardari skillfully argued that jugutis “were assimilated to non-Jewish Persians by culture and intermarriage and should not be considered Jews,” especially since they did not speak Hebrew or Yiddish like other Jewish communities and Iranian passports did not identify them as Jews.[25]

Knowing what was at stake, Sardari bolstered his formal arguments by more informal means. He bribed officials and held lavish diplomatic receptions, private parties, and exclusive outings to cultivate close personal relationships with the occupiers. On one eventful evening, Sardari hosted an eclectic crowd of diplomats, officials, entertainers, artists, and other notable figures at the Iranian consulate in Paris, including a number of prominent figures from among the occupying authorities. [26] The lavish gathering was widely considered a smashing success, granting Sardari local acclaim and a substantial amount of social and political influence among high-ranking figures.

Sardari simultaneously went on the offensive with his arguments, which reached the very highest levels of German government.[27] Eventually German authorities grudgingly exempted ethnic Iranian Jews living in Nazi-occupied northern France from persecution. Vichy authorities across the rest of France ultimately did the same.[28] Unwilling to leave others threatened, he then distributed almost one thousand blank Iranian passports to other Jewish families, even though they had no Iranian connections. As a result of his efforts, most Jews of Iranian descent living in France during the war survived the Holocaust. In fact, “German archival documents suggest that Sardari managed to exempt 2,400 Jews from Nazi racial laws, a number considerably greater than the entire Iranian Jewish population residing in France at the time.”[29]

Following World War II, Sardari remained in Iran’s diplomatic corps until 1958, when he joined the National Iranian Oil Company and moved to London, where he passed away in 1981.[30] Despite his righteous actions during the Holocaust, Sardari avoided public recognition. Prior to his death, however, he explained why he worked to save so many Jewish lives: “As you may know, I had the pleasure of being the Iranian Consul in Paris during the German occupation of France, and as such it was my duty to save all Iranians, including Iranian Jews.”[31]

Helmy: A Physician’s Oath

As Dr. Mohamed Helmy strolled the streets of Berlin, the heart of Nazi Germany, he contemplated how he could help Anna Boros, his young Jewish friend. A twenty-one-year-old patient and family friend, she desperately needed a place to hide to avoid deportation to a concentration camp.

Soon after the Nazi Party took power in Germany in 1933, Helmy, head of the urology department at a respected Berlin hospital, watched with dismay as the authorities dismissed Jewish doctors, his longtime friends and colleagues, from their jobs.[32]  In 1938, he was himself discharged from his position at the hospital and prohibited from working in the public health system on racial grounds.[33] A vocal critic of the Nazis, Helmy was increasingly targeted by the German authorities.[34]

Although the danger was great, Helmy chose to help Anna, hiding her in a cabin he owned in a northeastern part of Berlin. Given Helmy’s own status as a non-Aryan and his outspoken criticism of Nazi policies, hiding Anna was no easy task. Nazi officials investigated Helmy on several occasions. During these occasions, Helmy masterfully evaded their questioning and went to extraordinary lengths to keep Anna safe.[35] According to Anna, “In such cases he would bring me to friends where I would stay for several days, introducing me as his cousin from Dresden. When the danger would pass, I would return to his cabin.”[36]

Helmy did not protect only Anna. He went to great lengths to help the rest of her family, including Anna’s mother, stepfather, and grandmother.[37] He arranged for Frieda Szturmann, a local German woman, to hide and provide for Anna’s grandmother, Cecile Rudnik, for over a year, and he also provided the family with medical care while they were in hiding.[38]

His efforts to protect the family nearly came to a tragic end when the Gestapo caught Anna’s mother and stepfather hiding in 1944. In the course of their interrogation, the Gestapo discovered that Helmy was hiding Anna. Alerted that Gestapo knew his deception, Helmy rushed Anna to Szturmann’s home for safekeeping.[39] Despite being harshly interrogated by the Gestapo, Helmy did not give up his friend.[40] Instead, he misled the Gestapo by forging a letter from Anna that said that she was staying with her aunt in Dessau, Germany.[41]  

Because of the actions of Dr. Helmy and Ms. Szturmann, Anna and her family survived the Holocaust. Years later, long after Anna, her grandmother, and her parents had died, Anna’s daughter Carla contacted Yad Vashem to tell her family’s story. In speaking of the man who had cared for and protected her mother, Carla said, “If it weren’t for Dr. Helmy, I would not be here today, as well as my two brothers, Charlie and Fred. In addition, between the three of us, we have seven children who wouldn’t be here as well.”[42]

On March 18, 2013, Yad Vashem designated Frieda Szturmann and Dr. Mohamed Helmy as “Righteous Among the Nations” for their role in safeguarding Jewish lives. Dr. Helmy was the first Arab to receive the honor for rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.[43] Following Helmy’s public recognition by Yad Vashem, Carla provided documentation that Helmy had obtained a certificate from the Central Islamic Institute in Berlin documenting Anna’s conversion to Islam and had fabricated a marriage certificate showing that Anna had married an Egyptian national in a wedding ceremony at his residence in 1943.[44] Before her death, Anna said, “Dr. Helmy did everything for me out of the generosity of his heart and I will be grateful to him for eternity.”[45]

Conclusion

Today, the Middle East is often characterized as polarized, conflict-prone, and intolerant. However, the stories of Khaled Abdul-Wahab, Selahattın Ülkümen, Abdol-Hossein Sardari, and Mohamed Helmy show different possibilities – possibilities of respect and self-sacrifice for the rights of others. Their stories demonstrate the impact that courageous individuals with the conviction to stand for what is right can have on the lives. Some hid Jews in their homes or on their property while others provided them with false documentation and identities, but all viewed their Jewish neighbors as fellow human beings. Their displays of conscience and courage illustrate that even in the most difficult of times, human conscience and goodness can cross even the most defined of religious or cultural boundaries.

 

Learn More

News & Analysis

“Abdol Hossein Sardari (1895–1981).” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia last updated 20 June 2014.  http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007452

“Abdol Hossein Sardari.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdol_Hossein_Sardari

“About Yad Vashem.” Yad Vashem: The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/index.asp

Barbati, Gabriele. “Abdol Hossein Sardari, The Iranian Diplomat Who Saved Thousands Of Jews From The Nazis.” International Business Times. 27 January 2013. http://www.ibtimes.com/abdol-hossein-sardari-iranian-diplomat-who-saved-thousands-jews-nazis-1041064

“Book Tracks Holocaust’s ‘Lost Stories.’” National Public Radio: Books. 8 December 2006. Podcast. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9678526

“Holocaust.” Rhodes Jewish Museum. http://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/history/holocaust

“‘The Iranian Schindler’”: Abdol-Hossein Sardari’s Fight to Save the Iranian Jews of Occupied France.” Ajam Media Collective: A Roundup of Perso-Iranian High & Low Culture. 11 June 2012. http://ajammc.com/2012/06/11/the-iranian-schindler-abdol-hossein-sardaris-fight-to-save-the-iranian-jews-of-occupied-france/

“Khaled Abdul-Wahab.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_Abdul-Wahab

“Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom, November 9–10, 1938.” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia last updated: 20 June 2014. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005201

Meidan, Anat. “Righteous Among the Arabs.” Ynetnews.com. 14 November 2010. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3978445,00.html

“Mohammed Helmy.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_Helmy

“Obituaries: Selahattin Ülkümen.” The Telegraph. 18 July 2003. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1436384/Selahattin-Ulkumen.html

“Rescued by an Egyptian in Berlin: Dr. Mohamed Helmy and Frieda Szturmann.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/helmy.asp

“The Rescuers: Selahattin Ülkümen.” Facing History and Ourselves. https://www.facinghistory.org/rescuers/selahattin-ülkümen

“A ‘Righteous’ Honor for an Arab Who Saved Jews.” National Public Radio: Books. 19 April 2007. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=967852

“Selahattin Ülkümen.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selahattin_Ülkümen

“Selahattin Ülkümen.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/ulkumen.asp

Sharafedin, Bozorgmehr. “Why Iran Takes Issue with the Holocaust.” BBC Persian. 8 October 2013. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-24442723

“Voices on Antisemitism: Faiza Abdul-Wahab.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 30 August 2007. Podcast. http://www.ushmm.org/confront-antisemitism/antisemitism-podcast/faiza-abdul-wahab

Wheeler, Brian. “The ‘Iranian Schindler’ who saved Jews from the Nazis.” BBC News. 20 December 2011. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16190541

 

Books

Halter, Marek. Stories of Deliverance: Speaking with Men and Women Who Rescued Jews from the Holocaust. Chicago: Open Court, 1998.

Mokhtari, Fariborz. In the Lion’s Shadow: The Iranian Schindler and His Homeland in the Second World War. Great Britain: The History Press, 2011.

Satloff, Robert Barry. Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands. New York: PublicAffairs, 2006.

Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. New York: New York University Press, 1993.

 

Videos

“Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands.” Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). 2010. Documentary. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/among-the-righteous/

“Egyptian Honoured by Israel.” CBC/Radio-Canada. 1 October 2013. http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Must%20watch/ID/2409509184/

“An Egyptian named ‘Righteous Among the Nations.’” fmc-terrasanta.org. 2013. http://www.terrasanctablog.org/2013/11/20/an-egyptian-named-righteous-among-the-nations/

“Iranian Schindler That Saved Jews is Celebrated at The Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center.” YouTube. 26 February 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQd5KqcQAbI&list=PLBM40l-AxJO28L7Sa7-aYT5uiVI6YGsp9&index=1

“The Rescuers: Selahattin Ülkümen in Rhodes.” Facing History and Ourselves. https://www.facinghistory.org/rescuers/rescuers-videos

“The Story of an Arab Man Who Saved Jews During the Holocaust.” AOL. 11 August 2014. http://on.aol.com/video/the-story-of-an-arab-man-who-saved-jews-during-the-holocaust-518365492

“Zero Degree Turn Trailer.” YouTube. 27 March 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqN3xnA3yG8.

 

 

[1] Satloff, Robert Barry. Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Lands. New York: PublicAffairs, 2006. pg. 124.

[2] Ibid. pg. 124. Anny Boukris was seventy-one years old when she dictated her story to oral historian Zepporah Glass on October 8, 2003. Glass conducted the interview on behalf of author Robert Satloff, who was not present in the United States at the time. Satloff chose Glass for the interview because she was experienced in collecting oral histories from Holocaust survivors.

[3] Ibid. pg. 12.

[4] Ibid. pg. 19.

[5] Ibid. pg. 136-137.

[6] Ibid. pg. 126.

[7] Rhodes was previously under Ottoman rule for close to four hundred years, from 1522 to 1912. The island was then under Italian occupation from 1912 until 1943.

[8] Halter, Marek. Stories of Deliverance: Speaking with Men and Women Who Rescued Jews from the Holocaust. Chicago: Open Court, 1998. pg. 184.

[9] Ibid. pg. 184.

[10] “Holocaust.” Rhodes Jewish Museum. http://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/history/holocaust

[11] Auschwitz was a set of concentration and extermination camps used by the Nazi regime to mass murder Jews, political prisoners, Poles, and several other groups of people considered subhuman within Nazi racial ideology. Roughly 1.1 million people died at Auschwitz. The liberation of the camp on January 27, 1945 is commemorated each year as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

[12] “Holocaust.” Rhodes Jewish Museum. http://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/history/holocaust

[13] Halter, pg. 184.

[14] Ibid. pg. 184.

[15] Ibid. pg. 184.

[16] Ibid. pg. 186.

[17] “Holocaust.” Rhodes Jewish Museum. http://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/history/holocaust

[18] Shaw, Stanford J. Turkey and the Holocaust: Turkey’s Role in Rescuing Turkish and European Jewry from Nazi Persecution, 1933-1945. New York: New York University Press, 1993. Pg. 253.

[19] Ibid. pg. 253-254.

[20] “Selahattin Ülkümen.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/ulkumen.asp. The Righteous Among the Nations designation is the highest award Israel can bestow upon non-Jews in recognition of assisting people to survive the Holocaust at great personal risk. The basic parameters for awarding the Righteous designation can be found at http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/faq.asp. In general, the base criteria are as follows: active involvement in saving one or several Jews from the threat of death or deportation to extermination camps, risk to the rescuer’s life, liberty or position, the initial motivation being the intention to help persecuted Jews, and testimony of those who were helped or at least unequivocal documentation establishing the nature of the rescue and its circumstances.

[21] Halter, pg. 183.

[22] Mokhtari, Fariborz, In the Lion’s Shadow: The Iranian Schindler and His Homeland in the Second World War. Great Britain: The History Press. 2012.

[23] After the Allied invasion and occupation of Iran by Britain and the Soviet Union in 1941, Switzerland was responsible for Iranian interests in France and the rest of occupied Europe. Although the Iranian government recalled its ambassador stationed in Vichy, Sardari stayed in Paris and worked in an unofficial capacity to protect the Iranian community in France, including Jewish businesspeople and their families. Vichy is a city in France that served as the capital of the French State, the nominal government of France during World War II.

[24] Ibid. pg. 94.

[25] “Abdol Hossein Sardari (1895–1981).” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia last updated 20 June 2014.  http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007452

[26] Mokhtari, Pg. 51.

[27] Ibid.

[28] Abdol-Hossein Sardari did not act alone. He was assisted in his efforts throughout World War II by an array of people, including, but not limited to, fellow diplomats, government officials, and close friends. At some point, Sardari met and collaborated with Dr. Asaf Atchildi to save Jewish lives using the premise that Jugutis were not of the Jewish race as formulated within Nazi racial ideology. Atchildi was a Russian-educated physician from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and head of the Central Asian Juguti community in Paris during World War II.

[29] Mokhtari, pg. 16.

[30] Ibid. pg. 115. Further attesting to his courageous actions during World War II, Sardari was recalled from Brussels to Tehran by the Iranian government in 1952 on charges of misconduct and embezzlement. The accusations against him included issuance of unauthorized passports and misuse of government funds from 1941-1946. The charges against Sardari were later dismissed.  

[31] “Abdol Hossein Sardari (1895–1981).” Holocaust Encyclopedia, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Encyclopedia last updated 20 June 2014. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007452; “About Yad Vashem.” Yad Vashem: The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/index.asp. According to Yad Vashem’s website, it is the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust, safeguarding the memory of the past and imparting its meaning for future generations. Founded in 1953, the memorial serves as the world’s center for documentation, research, education, and commemoration of the Holocaust.

[32] “Rescued by an Egyptian in Berlin: Dr. Mohamed Helmy and Frieda Szturmann.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/helmy.asp

[33] Ibid.

[34] Ofer, Aderet, “Yad Vashem names Egyptian first Arab Righteous Among the Nations,” Haaretz. September 30, 2013. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.549718

[35] “Rescued by an Egyptian in Berlin: Dr. Mohamed Helmy and Frieda Szturmann.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/helmy.asp

[36] Ofer, Aderet, “Yad Vashem names Egyptian first Arab Righteous Among the Nations,” Haaretz. September 30, 2013. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/.premium-1.549718

[37] “Rescued by an Egyptian in Berlin: Dr. Mohamed Helmy and Frieda Szturmann.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/helmy.asp

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Hugi, Jacky, “Arab Hero Receives Israeli Holocaust Museum Award,” Al-Monitor. October 16, 2013. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/mohamed-helmy-arab-righteous-among-the-nations-holocaust.html#

[41] “Rescued by an Egyptian in Berlin: Dr. Mohamed Helmy and Frieda Szturmann.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/helmy.asp

[42] Hugi, Jacky, “Arab Hero Receives Israeli Holocaust Museum Award,” Al-Monitor. October 16, 2013. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/10/mohamed-helmy-arab-righteous-among-the-nations-holocaust.html#

[43] “Israeli Holocaust Memorial honors Arab for the First Time,” CBS News. September 30, 2013. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-holocaust-memorial-honors-an-arab-for-the-first-time/

[44] A photograph of Anna and her daughter Carla visiting Helmy in Berlin in 1969, a picture of Anna’s family visiting Helmy in Berlin in 1980, and an image of the false marriage document arranged for by Helmy can be found at http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/helmy.asp.

[45] “Rescued by an Egyptian in Berlin: Dr. Mohamed Helmy and Frieda Szturmann.” Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. 2014. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/helmy.asp