H. Res. 52

In the House of Representatives, U. S., 

January 22, 2007.

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 
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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; 
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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 
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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’’; 
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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 House of Representatives—

(1) recognizes the Reverend Waitstill Sharp and 

Martha Sharp as genuine American heroes; 

(2) pays tribute to the Reverend Waitstill Sharp 

and Martha Sharp for having their names 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 
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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 Clerk of the House of Representatives 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, and to the Unitarian Universalist Service 

Committee of Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

Attest:

Clerk.