Holocaust Rescuers
The Holocaust was a terrible time in history for Jews and other groups of people. The Holocaust lasted from January 30, 1993 to March 8, 1945. It started when the Nazis made Jews wear yellow stars of every piece of clothing that they own. Jews couldn’t go to regular schools they could only go to Jewish schools. Jews had a curfew and they would be arrested if they were out after dark. The Holocaust targeted mostly Jews but others were also targeted, such as Gypsies, homosexuals, and mentally disabled people. 12 million people died during the Holocaust but half of them were Jews. WWII ended when the Axis powers surrendered on May 8, 1945 because they were losing. The Allies accepted Germany’s surrender and a week later Hitler committed suicide. Some people during the Holocaust still helped the Jews even though they could be jailed or killed. In Warsaw, Poland Jews were being deported and killed in gas chambers. Janusz Korczak was a Polish-Jewish educator, children’s author, and pedagogue known as Pan doctor. At the beginning of the war, Korczak refused to wear the Jewish yellow badge so he spent some time in jail as a
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More rules were made in Poland. Anyone who helped Jews would be sent to concentration camps, jailed or be killed on the spot. That didn’t stop everyone from helping Jews. Jan Zabinski was one of those people. He owned the Warsaw Zoo and it was one of Europe’s largest zoos. When WWII started lots of animals were killed by many bombings. The animals that survived including the elephant Tuzinka were taken to Germany. Since all of the animals were gone, Zabinski hid Jews in the abandoned animal cages and he put some in his own home. On September 21, 1965, Yad Vashem recognized Jan Zabinski and his wife, Antonina Zabinska, as Righteous Among the Nations. On October 30, 1968 Dr. Jan Zabinski planted a tree on the Mount of Remembrance (“Yadvashem.org”). One year later he died he was