Delivered September 14, 2006, U.S. House of Representatives
Honoring Reverend Waitstill Sharp and Martha Sharp, American Heroes of the Holocaust

Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the Reverend Waitstill Sharp and his wife, Martha Sharp, who were true heroes of the Holocaust who risked their lives to save Jews from the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

The Sharps’ incredible story was told this morning at a very moving ceremony at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum where family, friends, and admirers gathered to pay tribute and remember the selfless and laudatory actions of this amazing couple. Their story was also a powerful reminder that all of us have the moral obligation to do anything we can to end violence and genocides wherever and whenever they occur.

On June 13, 2006, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Authority in Israel honored the Rev. Waitstill Sharp, and his wife, Martha Sharp, posthumously as “Righteous Among the Nations” for risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. The Sharps are only the second and third Americans to be so honored. Varian Fry, with whom the Sharps worked, was the first.

Our colleagues in the Senate passed a resolution on September 8 of this year honoring the courageous service of the Sharps. My colleague from Massachusetts, where the Sharps once lived, and I soon will introduce similar legislation in the House remembering the Sharps and their story and heroism.

Mr. Speaker, the Sharps left everything behind, including their home and two young children, to answer a call from the American Unitarian Association to go to Czechoslovakia in February of 1939. The Sharps were not content merely to feed the hordes of refugees passing through Czechoslovakia; they also began to assist anti-Nazi dissidents and Jews to escape Nazi oppression. In the very shadow of aggression, they helped thousands flee to safety elsewhere in Europe and the United States.

One month after the Sharps’ arrival in Prague, Nazi forces occupied Czechoslovakia, making their work much more dangerous. The Sharps could have escaped, but they refused to leave the refugees helpless. Though the Nazis descended upon the Unitarian mission in Prague, ransacking the office and throwing the furniture into the street, Reverend and Mrs. Sharp continued their mission. They began working out of private residences, boldly defying Nazi restrictions.

The Sharps did whatever was necessary to help Jews and opponents of the Nazi regime to escape Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, in spite of the considerable risk to their own lives. They entered and exited the border repeatedly, crisscrossed Europe to obtain needed travel documents, even escorted some of their clients by train through Germany itself, all the way to Great Britain. Focused on serving others, the Sharps ignored warning that they were in danger from the Gestapo.

On August 30, 1939, six months after they arrived in Czechoslovakia, the Sharps concluded their first mission and returned to the U.S. Their exit was just one day before Gestapo agents came to arrest Martha, who had earned a reputation for her daring disregard of Nazi rules.

After returning home for two years, the Sharps issued a report with the American Unitarian Association about the dangers faced by refugees all across Europe. As a result of this report, the Sharps were asked to set up a parallel operation in France under the newly founded Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. In 1940, the Sharps answered this call, courageously returning to Europe to aid more people flee the horror of the Nazi regime.

By the time the Sharps arrived in Europe, the Nazis had already occupied France, but the Sharps were undaunted. They set up the American Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in Lisbon, Portugal, from where they continued to assist many more refugees from war-torn Europe escape to safety.

In all, the Sharps and their Unitarian colleagues worked to save approximately 2,000 men, women, and children.

Mr. Speaker, the Sharps’ courageous, sacrificial, and selfless example should motivate all of us to do everything we possibly can to prevent the horrors of genocide taking place anywhere on this planet. As the only survivor of the Holocaust in Congress, I have a special commitment to raising this.

This morning’s ceremony at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum concluded with a visit to the special exhibit on Darfur, Sudan. We were reminded that when the horrors of the Holocaust were made public, we often heard the phrase “Never Again!” But since World War II we have seen such genocidal tragedies occur in Cambodia, Rwanda, and now Darfur.

The most moving and important message from the story of the Sharps is that they had the foresight and courage to leave their children and comfortable home behind – not just once, but twice – to go to the dangerous, gray, uncertain war zone of Europe to save people they probably did not even know. Their first trip was just days after kristallnacht, when the persecution of the Jews was just beginning to get more violent and ugly. Concentration camps were not yet even a glint in the Nazis’ eyes.

Mr. Speaker, the Sharps, and those who helped them to be able to do this, deserve the gratitude and admiration of all of us. Each and every one of us should make every effort to learn more about the wars and genocide occurring around the globe this very day, strive to have the courage of the Sharps, and act with equal resolve to do everything each of us can do to stop these horrors.

I urge my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to this selfless and dedicated couple whose response to the Holocaust and to inhumanity and brutality is one that men and women everywhere should emulate.