Let's Try Stopping One

Seventeen. Of all the gut-wrenching stories, numbers and statistics I heard today at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, it was this number, seventeen, that struck me the hardest. We were there to celebrate the life and legacy of Martha and Rev. Waitstill Sharp, two of the founders of the Service Committee.


We were joined by an amazing group of supporters, ranging from survivors, to Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), family members of the Sharps, the past and current presidents of the UUA, many members of UUSC, Unitarian ministers from around the country, press, filmmakers, and so many others intrigued by the Sharps' incredible story.

So, after hearing from many of these individuals, why was it this number among all the things said that stuck with me? Seventeen, as I learned today from Martha and Waitstill's grandson Artemis Joukowsky III, happens to be the number of Unitarian ministers that passed on the assignment to head to Czechoslovakia in 1939 to assess the growing threat to Jews and other dissidents from the Nazi party, which lurked just over the border in Germany before the Sharps accepted.

As it turned out, this was a very dangerous mission. Over two extended journeys within the European continent, often mere steps and minutes ahead of the Nazi party which actively pursued them, the Sharps were able to create a network that helped save over 2,000 Jews during the Holocaust. But it was never easy, and it was never safe.

The Sharps left two young children behind in Wellesley, Mass., when they embarked on this courageous mission. One can only imagine the ethical mathematics the Sharps engaged in to make the decision to embark on this mission. Was leaving their two children behind and leaving on such a dangerous trip worth the possibility of the good their presence could do? As Artemis relates in today's Washington Post (PDF), rather than engaging in ethical debates, they simply acted, and once they did were quickly caught up in "a growing series of moral imperatives they could not possibly forsee."

I myself am working toward becoming a UU minister, and I can only hope that I remember that of the eighteen of my long-ago colleagues who were asked to plunge into this risk that history demanded of them, it was the last that stepped up the plate and made the difference. They clearly were not the first candidates, they may not have been the best prepared, but in the end, they took action, and for the thousands who lived because of their deeds, it made all the difference.

After the ceremony was over we moved as a group into the USHMM's Darfur room. We were reminded by UUSC Program Director Atema Eclai in chilling terms of the genocide currently occuring in Sudan, and challenged much as those eighteen ministers were all those years ago. Instead of lamenting the fact that another genocide has occured on our watch, let's try stopping one. In that light, if you are interested in joining the massive rally against the Darfur genocide this Sunday please click here for more information.