Egyptian doctor becomes first Arab recognized for saving Jews during Holocaust [View all]
Source: The Christian Science Monitor
Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial museum, has added an Egyptian doctor to the ranks of Gentiles recognized as “Righteous Among Nations” for aiding Jews during the Holocaust.
Dr. Mohamed Helmy is the first Arab to be honored in the 50-year span of the project, which has recognized 24,911 individuals from 44 countries.
Yad Vashem, located in Jerusalem, learned of Helmy through letters written by several Jewish survivors he helped. The letters were found in a Berlin archive and recently passed along to Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among Nations department.
Helmy moved to Berlin for medical studies in 1922 and went on to work at a hospital, but his professional progress was thwarted by Nazi racial policies, and he was even arrested in 1939 and held for a year. Nevertheless, when a 21-year-old Jewish patient of his, Anna Boros (later Gutman), sought his help, he sheltered her in a cabin he owned in Berlin and moved her to friends’ homes from time to time to prevent her from being discovered. He also helped to hide three of her relatives, with the help of Frieda Szturmann, whom Yad Vashem has honored along with Helmy.
Read more: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/Olive-Press/2013/1001/Egyptian-doctor-becomes-first-Arab-recognized-for-saving-Jews-during-Holocaust
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