RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS HONOURED IN CANADA

The Righteous Among the Nations (RATN) designation is awarded to non-Jewish individuals who risked their lives and the lives of their families to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. Rescue took many forms including: hiding Jews in the rescuers’ home or on their property, providing false paper and identities, and smuggling or assisting Jews to escape. The Righteous came from many different countries, religions, and backgrounds.

Despite these desperate times, the Righteous chose to protect Jews at great risk to themselves and their families. When many collaborated with the Nazis or turned a blind eye to the mass deportation and systematic murder of Jews, these individuals, guided by their moral convictions, demonstrated that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary courage.

To date, Righteous Among the Nations or descendants living in Canada are still being identified, recognized and honoured across the country.

Jointly, The Canadian Society for Yad Vashem and the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Canada present this prestigious recognition to heroic Righteous Among the Nations and/or their descendants in a ceremony attended by family, friends, politicians and the community.

See below for honourees living in Canada.

Fiszhaut Helena; Rygalski Mieczyslaw - Poland (14046)

Many Jewish mourners recently attended the funeral on July 15, 1971 at St. Kazimir’s Catholic Church of Helena Longina Fiszhaut, who passed away in her 62nd year.

Lithuanian-born, Helena Rygalski hid Jews in her home, smuggled food into the Warsaw Ghetto to feed Jews and arranged for false documents when the situation became critical. She placed one Jewish child in hiding in a convent and under her protection, two Jewish women lived and worked outside the Ghetto.

One young Jewish child came to live with her while she was arranging papers for the father. However, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising intervened. The father was never heard from again and the child, a little girl, was kept by Helena’s parents during the war years at the risk of death to Helena’s husband who was killed in 1944. She later remarried. Together with her second husband, Dr. Stanley Fiszhaut, now deceased, she came to Canada in 1949 bringing along the little girl, Gustawa Stak, whom they legally adopted. Today, Gustawa is a graduate librarian working at the UBC library.

Some of the mother Jews whom this righteous Christian helped to save are still alive in Poland and one of them came to Toronto in 1968 where she is believed to be practicing medicine.

On 26 October, 2022, Yad Vashem recognized Helena Fiszhaut and her first husband Mieczyslaw Rygalski as Righteous Among the Nations.

Asselbergs George Marie Charles Cornelis – Holland (13844)

Hulsker Reinerus Jacobus & Corenlia Henriette (Schiess)

In 1912 David (Dik) Biet was born in the Dutch capital Amsterdam, to Jacob Biet and Jetje Cartoef. Jacob Biet was owner of an electric supplies store. Dik Biet had an elder brother, Hartog Jacob (b.1909) and a younger sister, Clara Elisabeth (b.1916). He grew up in Amsterdam, but later moved to Den Haag, where he worked in a big national car factory. In 1939 he married Alida Clara Tas (b.1916).

In 1940 the Germans invaded Holland and soon Dik Biet, like many other Jews, lost his job in the car factory. He started working at a telephone company and remained in contact with one of his former colleagues, George Marie Charles Cornelis (Jos) Asselbergs (b.1905), who lived in Leidschendam in the Dutch province of Zuid-Holland. Jos Asselbergs was at that time married to his second wife, but they divorced in 1941. From both marriages he had two sons and one daughter.

When in October 1943 Dik Biet received the news that his parents and elder brother with his wife had been arrested and transported to transit camp Westerbork, he decided to go into hiding and requested assistance from his friend Jos Asselbergs. Together with his wife Alida Clara, who was highly pregnant at that time, he was invited into Asselberg’s home, where they found to their surprise more Jewish hiders. Two weeks later Alida Clara Biet gave birth to a baby daughter.

The next month, Dik’s sister Clara Elisabeth Biet, who was deaf-mute, arrived in the Asselberg home as well. She had been rescued from the Hollandsche Schouwburg (a theatre in Amsterdam where arrested Jews were gathered before transport to Westerbork) by the resistance. All together Jos Asselbergs was hiding about 12-14 persons in his home, most of them Jewish. During the days they stayed in the greenhouse in the garden; at night they slept in Asselbergs’ house.

Dik Beit also stayed with a friend of Jos Asselbergs, Reinerus Jacobus (Rein) Hulsker (b. 1904) and his wife Cornelia Henriette Schiess (b. 1905), who lived in Voorburg, not far from Leidschendam. From time to time Dik went to visit his wife and baby daughter at Jos Asselbergs.

In the beginning of 1945, the hiders at Asselbergs were betrayed. All nine Jewish hiders who were staying at the Asselbergs at that moment, and Jos Asselbergs himself, were arrested. Dik Biet was present in the house at that moment, and he was arrested too. The Jewish hiders were transferred to Camp Westerbork, but fortunately there were no trains leaving for Germany or Poland anymore and they were liberated by the allies. Jos Asselbergs was imprisoned in the infamous prison “Oranjehotel” in Scheveningen, but he managed to escape during a transport. He remained in hiding until Liberation.

On 21 May 2019 Yad Vashem recognized George Marie Charles Cornelis Asselbergs and Reinerus Jacobus and Cornelia Henriette Hulsker (Schiess) as Righteous Among the Nations.

Kalkman, Dirk Pieter and Klaasje (Kuipers) – Holland (13509)

Dirk Pieter Kalkman (b. 1899) was a protestant Reverend, who lived with his wife Klaasje Kuipers (b. 1892) and children in Moordrecht, in the Dutch province of Zuid-Holland.

One day Reverend Post, a brother of the famous Dutch resistance worker Johannes Post asked the Kalkmans to hide a Jewish woman. Even though they were aware of the great risks of hiding a Jewish person in their home, they regarded this request as a divine order and agreed. In mid-1943 the woman arrived. Her name was Catharina Six tot Oterleek-Kuijper (b.1886). She was a widow, her husband had been a member of a noble family in Holland. Catharina didn’t have children and during her hiding time with the Kalkmans she lived under a false identity, named Ina Hoogeboom-Ouwehand. The Kalkman’s children called her ‘tante Ina’ (Aunt ina) and during children’s bible lessons in the vicarage she would accompany the songs on the organ. Thanks to her fake identity, Catharina didn’t have to hide herself constantly and played a role in the Kalkmans’ family life. To friends, family and neighbours they told that Ina was from Den Haag, which has been partially evacuated by the Nazis due to their fear for a possible invasion from the sea.

In January 1945 the Germans searched the town for men who were avoiding forced labour in Germany. T Hey went from house to house and also the Kalkmans were ‘honored’ with a visit. Two young men had hidden themselves on time under the floor, while Catharina was sitting in the room, together with the Kalkman family. The Germans started checking everyone’s identity papers and asked if there were hiders in the house. But when they discovered that one of the Kalkman’s daughters was sick with diptheria, they finished their research very quickly, which was of course a big relief for all persons present in the house.

Catharina Six tot Oterleek-Kuijper stayed with the Kalkman family until the liberation in May 1945. Thanks to them she survived and lived in Soest (in the Dutch province of Utrecht) until her death in 1978.

On 18 September 2017 Yad Vashem recognized Dirk Pieter and Klaasje Kalkman (Kuipers) as Righteous Among the Nations.

Lehotay, Gyozo & Maria – Hungary (13424)

Five-year-old Andrew George Kun lived in Budapest, Hungary during the Second World War. In May of 1944, when all Jews were forced to move into a ghetto, Andrew’s mother, Klara, arranged for friends of theirs, Victor and Mary Lehotay, to take Andrew and pretend he was their son. When the authorities became suspicious, they found Andrew alternative hiding places, including a Catholic boarding school. The Lehotays also helped Andrew’s mother find refuge when she was kicked out of her hiding place after she gave birth to her daughter, Susan.

Andrew’s father, who was sent to forced labor, survived the war, and the family immigrated to Canada in 1948. The two families remained in contact after the war. In 1956, after the Hungarian Revolution, Andrew’s father helped the Lehotay family immigrate to Montreal, Canada, where the Kun family lived. Andrew Kun attributes the actions of the Lehotay family to saving his life, as well as the life of his mother and younger sister.

On 6 June 2017 Yad Vashem recognized Gyozo & Maria Lehotay as Righteous Among the Nations.