III 

109TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 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 the Holocaust. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

SEPTEMBER 8, 2006 

Mr. CHAFEE (for himself, Mr. REED, Mr. KERRY, and Mr. KENNEDY) 

submitted the following resolution; which was considered and agreed to 

RESOLUTION 

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 the Holocaust. 

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 


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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; 


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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 chilVerDate Aug 31 2005 22:29 Sep 12, 2006 Jkt 049200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR562.ATS SR562

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dren 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 


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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 


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1 Resolved, That the Senate— 

2 (1) recognizes the Reverend Waitstill Sharp and 

3 Martha Sharp as genuine American heroes; 

4 (2) pays tribute to the Reverend Waitstill 

5 Sharp and Martha Sharp as their names are added 

6 to the Wall of Rescuers in the permanent exhibition 

7 of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

8 on September 14, 2006; 

9 (3) commends the organization founded to sup10 port the Sharps’ work, the Unitarian Universalist 

11 Service Committee, for its efforts to rescue Jews and 

12 opponents of the Nazi regime in Europe from 1939 

13 to 1945 and for carrying on the Sharps’ legacy by 

14 working to save the lives of the people of Darfur, 

15 Sudan and to protect human rights worldwide; and 

16 (4) requests the Secretary of the Senate to 

17 transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to the 

18 Joukowsky family of Providence, Rhode Island, the 

19 direct descendants of the Reverend Waitstill Sharp 

20 and Martha Sharp, and to the Unitarian Univer21 salist Service Committee of Cambridge, Massachu22 setts. 

Æ 


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