UUSC held a special celebration on Monday, December 12, to honor the work and legacy of two of its founders, the Rev. Waitstill Sharp and Martha Sharp. The Sharps are being honored posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Israel for their heroic work in risking their lives to save Jews during World War II.

A diverse group of speakers addressed an engaged audience of about 175 at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Wellesley Hills, in Wellesley, Mass. – the very church at which Waitstill Sharp was minister when he and his wife, Martha, left for Europe in 1939. Their initial six-month stay in Prague, Czechoslovakia, turned into a six-year mission working in France and Portugal to help rescue refugees fleeing from the Nazi war machine.

The evening’s speakers paid tribute to the work of the Sharps and exhorted the audience to honor their legacy by challenging modern forms of genocide, such as the one now taking place in Darfur, Sudan. One after another, the speakers drew the link between genocide then and now and urged each person present to do what they could to make real the words so often repeated after the Holocaust: “Never again.”

UUSC President Charlie Clements, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to refugee camps in Chad housing survivors of the violence in Darfur, pledged that UUSC will continue to honor the Sharps’ legacy by standing with the people of Darfur in their time of need.

The celebration included remarks by Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston; the Rev. Dr. William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA and a UUSC board member; Clements; UUSC Director of Programs Atema Eclai; the Rev. William Sinkford, president of the Unitarian Universalist Association; Martin E. Sleeper, associate executive director of Facing History and Ourselves; Artemis Joukowsky III, the Sharps’ grandson, whose research was a driving force that resulted in the Yad Vashem honor; and Rosemarie Feigl, a Holocaust survivor aided by the Sharps.
 

Complete text of the speakers’ prepared remarks and testimonials:

Rev. William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA

Artemis Joukowsky III, grandson of Waitstill and Martha Sharp

Rosemarie Feigl, Holocaust survivor helped by the Sharps

Atema Eclai, UUSC director of programs

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