JERUSALEM, June 13 - In an emotional 45-minute ceremony in the Garden of the Righteous in Jerusalem, UUSC founders Martha and Waitstill Sharp were honored posthumously today for their heroic rescue of Jews from Nazi persecution.

An audience of about 70 people watched and wept as leaders of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial, presented a medal honoring the Sharps to their daughter, Martha Sharp Joukowsky.

From recovered case files and logs, it is clear that the Sharps and their Unitarian colleagues helped save nearly 2,000 people before the war’s end, Martha Sharp Joukowsky said.

"Too few of them would find safe harbors in the United States, because my parents had to struggle not only against Nazi and Vichy officials, but against anti-Semitism that was rampant in their own State Department, which denied many of their clients visas."

She added, "The fact that my parents are only the second and third Americans named as "Righteous" speaks volumes to the isolation and challenges of their roles as bearers of moral alarm."

Then along with Rosemarie Feigl, whom Martha Sharp rescued as a 14-year-old, Sharp Joukowsky unveiled the names of her parents carved in the monument.

The sight of the Sharps names in the Jerusalem rock was striking, said the Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. "This recognition really is in perpetuity. It was an exercise in the creation of permanent memory, which I found very moving."

The Sharps answered the call of the American Universalist Association in February 1939 and headed for Czechoslavakia, leaving behind a young son and daughter as well as a congregation in Wellesley, Mass. After harrowing experiences eluding the Gestapo as they helped hundreds of people desperate to escape, the Sharps returned to Europe in 1940, this time heading to France at the behest of the nascent Unitarian Service Committee.

In Israel the Sharps were honored for their commitment as individuals and for what they did on behalf of a religious organization.

"It was an individual call and an institutional commitment," said Sinkford. "The sad reality is that virtually no other religious institution made the commitment. And one wonders what the outcome would have been if they had."

Charlie Clements, president of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, said he found it gratifying that Yad Vashem understood that the Sharps’ response to the Holocaust was also "an institutional one based on faith."

The chairman of Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev, made clear in his remarks that while the recognition of the Sharps technically applies to the rescue of Lion Feuchtwanger, a prominent Jewish novelist, and  Rosemarie Feigl, the Sharps helped several thousand people throughout the war years as part of the institution they helped found, Clements said.

In the end, Clements said, Yad Vashem understood "that this was about an entire denomination that was concerned about what was happening to Unitarians in Czechoslavakia. And when the Sharps went there and saw what was happening to other people, they responded and many of those they helped were Jewish."

Clements said the remarks of Shalev, a retired general, caught the audience by surprise. He said that soldiers always know they have the backing of their colleagues, the soldiers behind them, and an entire army.

"What these people did was so different because they went into situations where they only had each other," Clements said, paraphrasing Shalev. "Their only support system was their spouse. It was so different from what you do in the military. He wanted to honor that."

Clements and Sinkford said they were gratified that Martha Sharp Joukowsky linked the efforts of her parents to the need for action in Darfur, Sudan today.

"This wasn’t just about celebrating the past, but about what celebrating the past can inspire us to do today," Clements said.

Sinkford, who spoke at an evening reception at the King David Hotel after the ceremony, said that the best way to honor the Sharps and their legacy is to press for an end to the genocide in Darfur. And there is no better place to find that inspiration, he said, than at Yad Vashem.

"This is a very powerful place emotionally and this has been a very powerful day," Sinkford said. This was an opportunity to recommit. And to deepen the commitment to action in Darfur."

Clements said that it was an emotional moment when Sharp Joukowsky was concluding her remarks and noted that her parents would expect people to take action to help people in Darfur.

"Good God," she said. "It’s needed today."
 

Read the full text of Martha Sharp Joukowsky's remarks