Today is the 11th day of the Omer.
Today, we observe Yom HaShoah—a day for remembering the victims of the Holocaust, which falls upon the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Ceremonies throughout Israel and the United States often feature survivor testimonies, as well as memorials for those who perished.
Just as we remember those who perished in the Holocaust, we also give thought to those who put their lives at risk so some could be saved. Today is also the anniversary of the sentencing of Hans von Dohnanyi, a Hungarian-born German citizen who was condemned to hang on April 8, 1945 by the Nazis for his participation in an attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler.
Immediately following the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, when the Nazis authorized the murder of political opponents without trial or sentence, Dohnanyi, a government advisor, sought out contacts in German resistance circles and began chronicling the crimes of the Nazi regime so evidence would remain of their crimes. In opposition to the Nazis, he smuggled 13 Jews from Berlin to Switzerland in 1942, securing them passport entry and finances to support themselves. In 1943, he planted a bomb aboard a plane carrying Hitler, but the bomb failed to detonate. Two months later, he was arrested and jailed for funneling money to the Jewish people he saved in Switzerland, but, once his role in the plot against the fuhrer was discovered, he was executed.
Dohnanyi was recognized posthumously by the State of Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations for giving his life trying to save others from the Nazis. His name is recorded in the Wall of Honor at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Dohnanyi’s commitment to the welfare of others and to his nation revealed a deep sense of achrayut—responsibility toward others. But for the brave actions of those like Dohnanyi, how many more would we mourn on this Yom HaShoah? And how can we be inspired by his example to demonstrate our achrayut toward one another, regardless of circumstance?
— Rabbi Josh Knobel