A dramatic documentary television program, illustrating the manner in which “pitifully” few Christians, “in some areas disgracefully few,” helped Jews in Europe during the Nazi holocaust, was transmitted coast-to-coast here tonight by the National Broadcasting Company.
Chet Huntley, a member of the prize-winning Huntley-Brinkley team of news reporters, acting as narrator on the program, entitled “The Righteous,” declared: “The righteous were few in number. They were spread unevenly throughout Europe. There were almost none in Germany, Austria, Poland, the Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eastern Europe. But it was in France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Italy and Norway that the Jews found sympathy and, sometimes, assistance.
“At this late date, however, neither numbers nor nationality are crucial,” Mr. Huntley continued. “What is important is to find those who helped, not only for their sake but for ours. From them, we may learn the motivations of the righteous man, for the need for the righteous is always with us.”
Ace NBC correspondents interviewed, on the program, a number of Christians who participated in the work of aiding Jews, often at the risk of their own lives. Among them were a French Capucine monk, Father Benoit; Mrs. Jean Damon Scagliona, a former Belgian school teacher, now living in California; Ana Simiate, a librarian in Vilna during the war, now living in Paris; Hermann Graebe, one of the rare Germans to help Jews, who lives in San Francisco; Leo Hordyk, a Dutchman also living now on the West Coast; and Mrs. Eduardo Focherini, widow of an Italian who died in a Nazi concentration camp after being arrested for aiding Jews.
“The crimes of the Nazi era,” said Mr. Huntley in concluding the program, could not help but shake our faith in the essential goodness of man. Yet such a faith is essential to the functioning of a democratic form of government, and it’s the essence of Western liberalism. The deeds of these righteous Christians are sustenance for that faith.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
