Garden of the Righteous
Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial
June 13, 2006

That my parents are honored today as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ is a testament to the determination of a few people who would not allow the silt of time – so much a part of my life as an archeologist – settle over the deeds and memories of Waitstill and Martha Sharp. First and foremost, I must thank my sons Artemis and Misha, who have been dogged in their pursuit of historical truth. I must thank Larry Benequist and William Sullivan, two professors, who upon reading my mother’s obituary decided that her story should be told in film and sought family permission to begin their investigation into those difficult years that will forever remain associated with the Holocaust. And finally, I want to thank dear Ghanda Difiglia, who as part of the effort of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee to recover its own historical memory in anticipation of its 40th anniversary, began interviewing my mother and father in the late 1970s.

Ghanda’s gentle, but persistent probing gained their confidence and led to a friendship with each of them that would last until they died. Beginning on the night the Nazis occupied Prague on March 15, 1939, when they separately escorted anti-Nazi dissidents past the Gestapo to safety at the British embassy, and then embraced in the safety of their hotel room…to the time toward the end of the war when mother directed a large European refugee effort from Lisbon that followed the Allies advances and my father served with UNRRA in the Balkans, they led separate but intertwined lives, which were sustained in part by their devotion to each other.

In the course of those years, they made the difficult decision to leave me and my brother Hastings in the care of family and friends, knowing we would miss them terribly. Knowing that Hastings and I were safe allowed my parents to respond to the lives of people endangered, because they were Social Democrats…or Socialists…or Communists…or trade unionists…or artists and authors who refused to bow to totalitarianism or simply because they were Jewish. They did not shy away from sacrifice…personal risk…or controversy often assisting clients that other organizations shied away from. It is fitting that Waitstill and Martha are honored together today, because they did this work as husband and wife, but my parents would be the first to point out that they were part of a larger circle of people who made their work possible.

Today, my parents are recognized for their efforts on behalf of a few individuals whom they helped escape from France at the beginning of the war – and we are grateful that one of them, Rosemary Feigl, is here to represent them. We know from recently recovered case files from Prague, from logs kept by the staff of the Unitarian Service Committee office that my parents opened in Lisbon in 1940 and would remain open throughout the war, and from archival records in Boston that they and their Unitarian colleagues who followed in their footsteps in Europe kept, that almost 2,000 men, women, and children were eventually assisted in finding safety before the war’s end. Too few of them would find safer harbors in the United States, because my parents had to struggle not only against Nazi and Vichy officials but against the anti-Semitism that was rampant in their own State Department, which denied many of their clients visas. The fact that my parents are only the second and third Americans named as "Righteous" speaks volumes to the isolation and challenges of their roles as bearers of moral alarm.

They are recognized today for their role in "rescue," but as their daughter, I must note that in all of those years, they never relented in their efforts to feed, clothe, and shelter refugees. As my father said years later, "If we were to serve even a fraction of the most acute human needs, we were duty bound to carry on two lines of work: first emergency relief measures with refugees; second emigration case work with those individuals who could escape in time to save their lives and souls in a foreign land."

It is good that this memorial we stand in today does not use the term heroes. My mother, trained as a social worker in Hull House in Chicago, and my father, a Sunday school teacher inspired to become a minister and lawyer, would be embarrassed by those labels. They were modest and ordinary people, who responded to the suffering and needs around them…as they would have expected everyone to do in a similar situation. They never viewed what they did as extraordinary. They would have been embarrassed to be singled out in this way. This medal not only reflects their determination and courage…it is about unseen efforts of a much wider circle of people who made their work possible – the people who sent donations to the Unitarian Service Committee, the secretaries who maintained detailed case files here and abroad, the families who signed affidavits of sponsorship for refugees, the counselor officials who issued visas against the wishes of their governments, and all of those who took physical risks over the escape routes. All of you – today – share the title "Righteous Among the Nations."

It is the kind of network that is needed again today to stop the slow genocide in Darfur. Let this celebration about my parents stand as a call to action. Good God, it’s needed today.