The Forgotten Story of a Dutch Woman Who Saved Thousands of Jews from the Nazis

Geertruida “Truus” Wijsmuller, a Gentile born in the Netherlands, is the subject of newly released documentary that relates her efforts to rescue Jews from Europe on the eve of World War II—most importantly her role in arranging for the Kindertransport, in which a large number of Jewish children were brought from Germany and Austria to Britain. In 1938, Wijsmuller walked into the office of Adolf Eichmann, then the German official in charge of getting Jews out of Germany, and made a proposal, as Francine Wolfisz writes:

Leaning over the SS-Obersturmführer’s desk inside the Gestapo headquarters—formerly the Palais Rothschild in Vienna, [Wijsmuller] told Eichmann the British government was happy to take youngsters under the age of seventeen from Nazi countries for a temporary stay. “Let’s arrange it,” she said.

He, in turn, was astounded. “So Aryan and so insane,” he retorted. Snarling at her, Eichmann proposed an impossible task—if she could successfully take 600 children, she could have all 10,000. But it had to be done that Saturday. Logistics were one problem; convincing the most observant parents to let their children travel on the Jewish Sabbath . . . was a very different obstacle. But Wijsmuller proved Eichmann wrong and became a key part of not only the Kindertransport, but many other child refugee rescues throughout Europe during the Second World War.

While those she liaised closely with—including the late humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton—rightly received recognition for their efforts, Wijsmuller’s contribution is far from well-known, despite the fact she saved thousands of lives, often at great personal risk.

But it wasn’t just the Jewish community she helped. She saved the life of Thomas Benford, Jr, the son of a famous African American drummer in Paris, who was just days old when she took him to Amsterdam.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Holocaust, Kindertransport, Righteous Among the Nations

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF