In 1938, at the age of nineteen, George Weidenfeld fled Nazi-occupied Austria for Britain, where the Plymouth Brethren, a Christian organization, helped him settle. Now Lord Weidenfeld, who is the founder of a major British publishing house, is partnering with the UK Jewish National Fund [JNF] to help rescue Middle Eastern Christians. Jenni Frazer writes:
The honorable repayment of a debt from the Holocaust was a prime motivator for Weidenfeld. “In the 1930s thousands of Jews, mainly women and children, were helped by Christians who took enormous personal risks to save them from certain death. We owe a debt of gratitude,” [he] said. . . .
[T]here had been internal discussion as to whether humanitarian rescue was the right sort of project for the UK Jewish National Fund, an organization that is known for its work in . . . developing the land of Israel, as well as for Zionist education and advocacy.
“[W]e felt that . . . once we had been approached, we could not say no,” said Michael Sinclair, the vice-chairman of the British JNF. “We thought about how we would have felt if we had learned that a Christian group had had the opportunity to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust and turned that opportunity down.” . . .
Under conditions of great secrecy, the 42 families—149 people in all—were flown from Beirut to Warsaw, where many of them have asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation against [their] relatives still in Syria. The Polish government offered entry visas, and temporary accommodation in Poland has been provided by a Warsaw-based charity.
Read more on Times of Israel: http://www.timesofisrael.com/holocaust-survivor-repays-ultimate-debt-via-rescue-of-syrian-christians/