[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 110 (Friday, September 8, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9255-S9256]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SUBMITTED RESOLUTIONS

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 SENATE RESOLUTION 562--PAYING TRIBUTE TO THE REVEREND WAITSTILL SHARP 
  AND MARTHA SHARP FOR THEIR RECOGNITION BY THE YAD VASHEM HOLOCAUST 
   MARTYRS' AND HEROES' REMEMBRANCE AUTHORITY AS RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE 
     NATIONS FOR THEIR HEROIC EFFORTS TO SAVE JEWS DURING HOLOCAUST

  Mr. CHAFEE (for himself, Mr. Reed, Mr. Kerry, and Mr. Kennedy) 
submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to:

                              S. Res. 562

       Whereas on June 13, 2006, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' 
     and Heroes' Remembrance Authority in Israel, an organization 
     dedicated to preserving the memory of Holocaust victims, 
     honored the Reverend Waitstill Sharp, and his wife, Martha 
     Sharp, posthumously as ``Righteous Among the Nations'' for 
     risking their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust;
       Whereas the Sharps had to leave their 2-year-old daughter 
     and 6-year-old son in the care of family and congregants in 
     Wellesley, Massachusetts to answer a call from leaders of the 
     American Unitarian Association to go to Czechoslovakia in 
     February 1939 to provide humanitarian assistance for the tens 
     of thousands of refugees crowding into Prague;
       Whereas Martha Sharp was a social worker trained at the 
     Jane Addams Hull House, a community service organization in 
     Chicago, Illinois, and the Reverend Waitstill Sharp was a 
     Harvard-educated lawyer and a Sunday school teacher who was 
     inspired to become a Unitarian minister;
       Whereas after their arrival in Czechoslovakia the Sharps 
     immediately grasped that they needed not only to help feed 
     refugees, but also to assist Jews and opponents of the Nazi 
     regime escape to safety elsewhere in Europe;
       Whereas the Sharps refused to leave Prague when, in March 
     1939, a month after the Sharps' arrival, the Nazis occupied 
     Czechoslovakia, making the Sharps' work more urgent, more 
     complicated, and more dangerous;
       Whereas the Sharps insisted on continuing their life-saving 
     mission by working out of private residences even after April 
     1939, when the Nazis ransacked the office of the Unitarian 
     mission in Prague and threw the furniture into the street;
       Whereas the Sharps repeatedly risked their own safety to 
     exit and re-enter Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, crisscrossed 
     Europe to obtain the travel documents necessary to help Jews 
     and opponents of the Nazi regime escape Czechoslovakia, and 
     even escorted some refugees by train through Germany to the 
     United Kingdom;
       Whereas the Sharps were determined to complete their 6-
     month mission, even after warnings that the Gestapo was 
     searching for them;
       Whereas the Sharps stayed in Czechoslovakia until August 
     30, 1939, 1 day before Gestapo agents came to arrest Martha 
     Sharp, who had become known for her boldness at evading Nazi 
     rules restricting travel;
       Whereas upon the Sharps' return in 1940 to their family and 
     the Wellesley Hills Unitarian Church in Massachusetts, their 
     report to the American Unitarian Association about the 
     imminent danger posed by the Nazis to refugees across Europe 
     led to the Sharps being asked to establish a similar 
     operation in France under the newly founded Unitarian Service 
     Committee;
       Whereas the Sharps returned to Europe in 1940 fully aware 
     of the Nazi terror they would face;
       Whereas the Sharps had a special interest in saving refugee 
     children, as well as artists, intellectuals, and political 
     dissidents, and the Sharps and the Unitarian colleagues who 
     followed in their footsteps set up systems and escape routes 
     that functioned throughout World War II to assist 
     approximately 2,000 men, women, and children to gain freedom;
       Whereas the famous Jewish novelist, Lion Feuchtwanger, who 
     was one of the first Germans to have his citizenship revoked 
     after Hitler came to power and whose name topped the 
     Gestapo's ``Surrender on Demand'' list, was one of the first 
     people the Sharps helped in a dramatic and dangerous escape 
     from France;
       Whereas Eva Rosemarie Feigl, who was 14 in December 1940 
     when Martha Sharp helped her and 28 other children reach 
     safety in the United States, provided eye-witness testimony 
     that enabled the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' 
     Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, Israel, to honor the 
     Sharps as Righteous Among the Nations;
       Whereas when the Sharps' plans to set up the first office 
     of the newly formed Unitarian Service Committee in Paris, 
     France failed as a result of the Nazi occupation of France, 
     the Sharps instead established an operation in neutral 
     Portugal, where throughout World War II Lisbon remained the 
     last hope for refugees seeking safe passage out of Nazi-
     occupied territory;
       Whereas the Sharps recognized that they were dependent upon 
     a much larger circle of friends and colleagues who made their 
     heroism possible, such as the people who cared for the 
     Sharps' children, the members of the congregation in 
     Wellesley, Massachusetts who maintained the Wellesley Hills 
     Unitarian Church in the Sharps' absence, ordinary Unitarians 
     who financed their cause, ministers across the United States 
     who urged their congregations to become sponsors for 
     refugees, and secretaries who volunteered in Europe and the 
     United States to maintain thousands of case files for 
     refugees;
       Whereas the Sharps' efforts resulted not only in the rescue 
     of thousands of people, but in the creation of what is now 
     known as the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, an 
     institution that multiplied the number of rescues a thousand-
     fold in the years that followed;
       Whereas at the Yad Vashem ceremony that honored the Sharps 
     as Righteous Among the Nations on June 13, 2006, in Israel, 
     officials specifically recognized the Sharps' courage in 
     going into the heart of Europe when World War II was 
     unfolding and many people were fleeing;
       Whereas Martha Sharp was the first American woman to be 
     named Righteous Among the Nations, and the Reverend Waitstill 
     Sharp and Martha Sharp were only the second and third 
     individuals named Righteous Among the Nations who were United 
     States citizens at the time they performed the deeds for 
     which they were honored;
       Whereas the Sharps' daughter, Martha Sharp Joukowsky, 
     accepted the Yad Vashem honor on behalf of her parents and 
     remarked that 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'';
       Whereas Martha Sharp Joukowsky added that the honor given 
     to her parents is also about ``the unseen efforts of a much 
     wider circle of people who made their work possible'' and 
     that it ``is the kind of network that is needed again today 
     to stop the slow genocide in Darfur'';
       Whereas Martha Sharp Joukowsky concluded her remarks by 
     saying, ``Let this celebration about my parents stand as a 
     call to action'';
       Whereas September 9, 2006, marks the second anniversary of 
     the United States Government declaring the violence in 
     Darfur, Sudan to be genocide; and
       Whereas the Sharps deserve honor for their example and for 
     helping to found an institution, the Unitarian Universalist 
     Service Committee, that today carries on their work in 
     distant corners of the world and asks for the Righteous Among 
     the Nations to help save Darfur now: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) recognizes the Reverend Waitstill Sharp and Martha 
     Sharp as genuine American heroes;
       (2) pays tribute to the Reverend Waitstill Sharp and Martha 
     Sharp as their names are added to the Wall of Rescuers in the 
     permanent exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial 
     Museum on September 14, 2006;
       (3) commends the organization founded to support the 
     Sharps' work, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, 
     for its efforts to rescue Jews and opponents of the Nazi 
     regime in Europe from 1939 to 1945 and for carrying on the 
     Sharps' legacy by working to save the lives of the people of 
     Darfur, Sudan and to protect human rights worldwide; and
       (4) requests the Secretary of the Senate to transmit an 
     enrolled copy of this resolution to the Joukowsky family of 
     Providence, Rhode Island, the direct descendants of the 
     Reverend Waitstill Sharp and Martha Sharp,

[[Page S9256]]

     and to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee of 
     Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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