Family of First Egyptian To Be Recognized as Righteous Gentile Rejects Honor
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A family member of an Egyptian doctor, the first Arab to be recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile, said his family is not interested in the honor.
Mohamed Helmy, who died in 1982, was recognized by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in a ceremony last month.
The Associated Press tracked down one of Helmy’s relatives in Cairo, who told the news service that the family would not accept the award.
“If any other country offered to honor Helmy, we would have been happy with it,” Mervat Hassan, the wife of Helmy’s great-nephew, told The Associated Press.
She told the AP that the family did not want to accept the honor because Israel and Egypt continue to have a hostile relationship despite a 30-year peace treaty. She added that: “I respect Judaism as a religion and I respect Jews. Islam recognizes Judaism as a heavenly religion.”
Helmy settled in Berlin after completing his medical studies there. He suffered discrimination and was forbidden to work under the Nazi regime beginning in 1938 because he was not considered Aryan. He spoke out against Nazi policies and hid a Jewish friend at a cabin he owned and arranged to hide other members of her family at the home of a German woman who also was honored by Yad Vashem, Frieda Szturmann, according to Yad Vashem. Letters written decades ago by the Jewish Holocaust survivors on behalf Helmy were discovered in the archives of the Berlin Senate and recently submitted to Yad Vashem.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
