The International Institute for Holocaust Research

Father Hubert Celis, Righteous Among the Nations, with survivor Regina Wolbrom and her son at the son's bar mitzva

The International Institute for Holocaust Research has recently completed a project involving an in-depth research into the motivations and actions conducted by Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Christian Orthodox ecclesiastics who have received the honor as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for rescuing Jews in France and Belgium.  This project was carried out through the generosity of the Ford Foundation. 

This innovative project enabled the comparative analysis of the dynamics and the motivations of the rescue of Jews by a particular sector of society, viz. Protestant ministers and deaconesses and Roman Catholic and Christian Orthodox priests, religious brothers and sisters.  The project began with an extensive investigation of those who belonged to this particular sector of society.  It then investigated those who were involved in rescue networks, which type of networks, and those who conducted individual rescue operations on their own, not as members of or associated with a rescue network. 

The data compiled enables researchers to have a better understanding on how ecclesiastical institutions operated as a network both within or outside their own religious denominations and the differences on how they operated in rescuing the different segments of the Jewish community – children, adults, and elderly. The information also helps in understanding the different individual reasons why a person became involved in rescue activities.

Further information on the data collected and its analysis will soon be available for researchers.