Chabad officials in Israel renewed their efforts on Monday to obtain “righteous gentile” status from the Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial institute for a senior Nazi who saved Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneerson, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe during World War II.
The effort was based on new information revealed by historian Danny Orbach that Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the commander of German intelligence, smuggled the rabbi and hundreds of other Jews out of the Third Reich without monetary or other benefit and at risk to his own life and the lives of family members.
Canaris aide Hans von Dohnanyi, who acted on Canaris’s behalf, was named a righteous gentile in 2003.
However, Yad Vashem has rejected requests on behalf of Canaris, claiming he was indirectly responsible for Jewish deaths in his high-ranking capacity.
Orbach’s new book “Valkyrie -German Resistance to Hitler” states that not only did Canaris work to save Jews, he also worked against the Nazi war effort.
IsraelNN.com reported effort is being pursued by “the Chabad Lubavitch Hassidic movement,” but it is an effort by Chasidic researcher Yosef Yitzchak Kaminetsky who represented himself on behalf of “Kfar Chabad’s advisory board,” an unknown group.
Kaminetsky says it is inconsistent for someone who saved so many Jews to work for their liquidation.
According to Orbach’s book, Canaris was part of an underground that worked against Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and was arrested after the failed bombing attempt on Hitler’s life. He was taken to a concentration camp and, like von Dohnanyi before him, was executed, as was another assistant, General Hans Oster.
Canaris’s efforts on behalf of the Jews were documented by the people he saved and by American intelligence, as well as in a letter by Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann.
1) It is a very poor choice to put his picture in a montage next to the Frierdiker Rebbe. 2) He may have done some very good acts, but that doesn’t mean he was “righteous”. As the head of the German Intelligence service, he certainly was instrumental in many, many innocent deaths, and in helping facilitate the Nazi y”s war campaign. It is true that he opposed Hitler y”s, and eventually was killed, but that doesn’t wipe the slate clean. I think we should leave it to the One Above to mark the scorecard of this individual, but for US… Read more »
I heard he only smuggled him out because the Amrican government asked him to (because the chasidim begged them to do so) and the germans didnt want to get on the bad side of the Americans.
how many times will the same story be recycled
its not right to put the REBBA to gether with ah yemac shmonik , h,y,d
I hate to break it to you all but although he saved one Jew – he only did it due to HUGE political pressure. He also helped enable hundreds and thousands and mllions of Jews to be killed . If he would be admitted, hundreds of holocaust survivors would protest. He did not like Jews, he was an anti semite and someone should do better research.
This is mind boggling…. I know there’s no such as thing as a goy l’havdil doing teshuva… but for a Nazi yevach shemam, to do this sort of thing has some place in Gan Eden for sure…. My mother who is 91 may be live long and well, was also telling me her stories about her getting transferred from a “death camp” to a “weapons manufacturing factory” (AFL Lager)… and that the Nazis there, gave the Jewish workers more than enough daily food and treated them fine, to the extent that my mother pulled a wagon filled with pots of… Read more »
“The Chabad Lubavitch Hassidic movement renewed its efforts” — who in the movement?
He has a better deal then being recognized by Yad VaShem, He’s a beautiful place (palace) in Gan Eden for the righteous. The reward for saving 1 Yid is incomprehensible so imagine if you will the reward for saving so many Jews especially from a person in his capacity.