Vaad Hatzalah (the Rescue Committee or Committee for Rescuing) was an organization to rescue
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
from the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
, which was founded in November 1939 by the
Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada (''Agudath Harabbanim''
The organization was originally named Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivas and it is often referred to as "the Rescue Committee" also formally named: Vaad ha-Hatzala in Hebrew.
Activities
Recognizing that following the law would lead to greater numbers of Jews being murdered, the Vaad sometimes used means that were illegal.
For example, the
Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...
ambassador in
Bern
german: Berner(in)french: Bernois(e) it, bernese
, neighboring_municipalities = Bremgarten bei Bern, Frauenkappelen, Ittigen, Kirchlindach, Köniz, Mühleberg, Muri bei Bern, Neuenegg, Ostermundigen, Wohlen bei Bern, Zollikofen
, website ...
,
Aleksander Ładoś
Aleksander Wacław Ładoś lɛ'ksandɛr 'wadoɕ(December 27, 1891 – December 29, 1963) was a Polish politician and diplomat, who 1940–45 headed the Legation of Poland to Switzerland. Ładoś was a member and de facto leader of the Ładoś Gr ...
, sent coded cables to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
on behalf of the Vaad and related Jewish organizations. The
United States State Department had issued orders to block messages coming from Europe regarding news of the Nazis extermination of the Jews.
See also
*
Survivors' Talmud The Survivors' Talmud (also known as the U.S. Army Talmud) was an edition of the Talmud published in the U.S. Zone of Allied-occupied Germany on behalf of Holocaust survivors housed in displaced persons (DP) camps. It was the only known edition of ...
References
Jewish refugee aid organizations
Organizations which rescued Jews during the Holocaust
The Holocaust and the United States
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