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September 14, 2006

Update: R.I. native honored at Holocaust Memorial / Photos

AP photo / Linda Spillers
Martha Sharp Joukowsy, right, lights a candle at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. where her parents were honored today for their wartime service. Her husband, Artemis, and Nesse Godin, a Holocaust surviver, joined her today.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – About 75 people gathered here today to posthumously honor Providence native Martha Sharp and her former husband, Waitstill Sharp of Boston, for journeying to Europe in 1939 and taking bold risks to help Jews and other targeted people find refuge from the Nazis.

The two are among just three Americans honored with a plaque on the Rescuers Wall at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s permanent exhibition.

Members of the Sharp family, including grandson Artemis Joukowsky III, had a private viewing at the museum this morning of the small plaque installed there. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and U.S. Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., also attended the public ceremony today.

“This is not just a history lesson today,” said McGovern, who has actively worked in Congress to end the genocide in Darfur. “We need to do more than just praise the heroics of people like the Sharps. We need to do more than say, ‘Never again.’”

The Sharps are the second and third Americans – and Martha is the only American woman – honored by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial as “the Righteous Among Nations” for non-Jews who saved Jews. Altogether, about 20,000 non-Jews have received the honor.

Unitarian Universal Service Committee photo
Martha and Waitstill Sharp board a boat in New York City bound for Europe in 1939. They helped thousands of Jews escape the Nazis while in Czechoslovakia and France.

Extra: Learn more about the Sharps in projo.com's multimedia report on the couple, narrated by Journal columnist Mark Patinkin.

-- With reports from Journal staff writer John E. Mulligan

Posted by Kate Bramson  at 3:30 PM | Permalink

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