These few trees stand tall in courageous posture. This large park at Yad Vashem has only a relatively few trees planted in memorial to the righteous gentiles who saved Jews during the war. At great risk to their families and to themselves, they put their lives and those they loved dear in harm’s way just to save Jews. In Israel, to honor these heroic individuals a special tree is planted for every righteous Gentile who is deemed deserving. Why did a non-Jew do such an act of courage? One hero of this tree said that it was not about decision. It was about the moment. For him, it was midnight on a bone chilling rainy winter Sunday night. Had you asked him if he would have saved a Jewish family, he would have looked directly into your eyes and said of course not. What do I have to gain? I have everything to lose. But then one night, there was a knock at the door. Knock. Knock. Knock. Again. Knock. Knock. Knock. Harder this time. More urgent. Louder. He rolled out of his warm bed from underneath his heavy wool blankets, mumbled a few words to his slumbering wife that they had to get up in a few hours to feed the animals and who in the hell was knocking at this late hour? How was Mrs. Sobesiak down the road? Maybe she has taken a turn for the worst? Knock. Knock. Knock. Was he the only one hearing the steady sounds, like a drum beat on a death march? He stumbles out of the bedroom and shuffles down the hard wood stairs, as he rubs his eyes to wake himself up. Ok. Ok. I’m coming. Just a moment, he yells. He turns on the light outside and opens the door. Initially he does not see a thing, his eyes need a moment to adjust and then, in front of him, are seven dark human forms of various height, staring at him wordlessly with gaunt eyes and hollow cheeks and wet clothes, soaked through to the bone. Jews. He thinks to himself. Jews. And then in a whispered voice, barely audible above the hard wind, a man’s words pierce through the rain entering directly into his heart, like bullets directed to the strangers in front of him. “Please help me and my family. If you do not help us, we will all die. We have nowhere to go.” He looks around them and beyond, wondering if anyone has seen them arrive, realizing who would possibly be out on a night like this. And then he stands up for himself, into a place of courage and heroism. He makes a decision. A decision that will carry far-reaching, life-saving, life-altering consequences to the strangers in front of him, and possible death to himself and to his family. He brings the Jews inside his home.
