Unsung hero: The man who saved more Jews than Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust

For International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we bring to you the story of German businessman Wilfrid Israel, buried in the recesses of Jewish history. Less famous than Oskar Schindler, he is said to have done far more than what he is credited for. And his humanitarian work has an Australian connection too.

It is believed Wilfrid Israel didn't get due credit in Jewish history because he was a Jew and the State of Israel only recognises people of other religions who helped the community during the Holocaust. Source: Supplied / Yonatan Nir

Key Points

• Yonatan Nir’s documentary tells the heroic story of Wilfrid Israel during WW II
• The documentary states Wilfrid saved more Jews than Oskar Schindler of ‘Schindler’s List’ fame
• Wilfrid Israel’s Kindertransport rescued Jewish children from Europe, helped them emigrate to Australia, UK, US and Canada

While growing up, award-winning Israeli film producer and director Yonatan Nir didn’t find the backyard of his family home too interesting. But as a grownup film maker, the same backyard provided him the centrepiece of his seminal work.

It housed a museum dedicated to Wilfrid Israel, a German man of Jewish faith credited with saving the lives of more Jews than Oskar Schindler – Steven Spielberg’s inspiration for Schindler’s List which won several awards including the Oscars, Golden Globes and BAFTA.

Wilfrid was also amongst the original organisers of the Kindertransport, which let some of the earliest Jewish settlers into Australia.

Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler in the 1993 movie 'Schindler's List'. Source: AAP / MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY

During the Second World War, Kindertransport was an organised rescue effort involving Jewish children from Nazi-controlled territory to countries like Israel, Great Britain, the US, Canada and even Australia between 1938 and 1940 where they settled down and went on to become citizens.

Most of them would never see their parents again, who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Among Wilfrid’s closest friends were Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and the first Israeli president Chaim Weizmann.

Chronicling important information of those fraught times is Yonatan’s documentary The Essential Link: The Story of Wilfrid Israel that was released in 2016. It has been screened at several international film festivals and Holocaust remembrance events around the world.

The Wilfrid Israel Museum is an archaeology and art museum in Ha’zorea. Source: Supplied / Kibbutz Ha'zorea

Yonatan Nir was born in a Kibbutz (one of many community settlements of the agricultural community in Israel) in Ha’zorea, which was founded by his grandparents in the 1930s who were also German Jews.

His passion for travel and photography took him around the world to chase and capture a good story.

But he first heard about Wilfrid in his own Kibbutz.

The Kibbutz is also home to the Wilfrid Israel Museum, an archaeology and art museum whose kernel is the Asian art collection of the German man.

In 2012, Yonatan read a book titled Wilfrid Israel: German Jewry's Secret Ambassador written by Naomi Shepherd, a UK-born historian and journalist who has done extensive work in Israel.

A person walks behind the gate of the Sachsenhausen Nazi death camp with the phrase 'Arbeit macht frei' (work sets you free) in Oranienburg Germany on 25 January 2022. Source: AP / Markus Schreiber/AP/AAP Image

The book states how Wilfrid saved 15 times more Jews than Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust. Altogether, he is said to have saved about 20,000 Jews during that dark time.

Yonatan began a journey to find out more about him by trying to answer three simple questions: Who was Wilfrid Israel and what did he do, what was his connection to his Kibbutz, and why has no one ever told his story.

The credit really goes to Naomi Shepherd, who discovered the story about Wilfrid Israel.

Yonatan Nir

“So, she really inspired me to get the ball rolling and start making the documentary about Wilfrid,” Yonatan tells SBS Hebrew.

Back in the 1980s, Ms Shepherd had the opportunity to interview a group of Holocaust survivors and hear their firsthand stories about Wilfrid and what they had witnessed.

The reason this story was not widely published is at the centre of Yonatan’s documentary.

One of the reasons Wilfrid’s name didn’t go down in history’s pages is because he was a Jew.

Naomi Shephard

“There was no official recognition from the State of Israel towards Jews who saved Jews. All the credit really goes to non-Jews who saved Jews like Christians, Muslims and others,” Ms Shephard tells SBS Hebrew.

‘Righteous Among the Nations’ is an honorific term used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis for altruistic reasons.

“You can’t be a Jew and be given that honour,” explains Nir.

Liberated Polish inmates from the Dachau concentration camp raise bottles of wine and celebrate. Credit: Historical/Corbis via Getty Images

In 2020, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, dedicated the whole year to Jews who had saved Jews, and Yonatan’s documentary made a contribution to that.

Another reason why the Jews were not recognised for this act of humanity, is because during the 1930s, the only way to ‘negotiate' with the Germans was via diplomacy and direct negotiations with the government, mainly with those who controlled the camp trains, borders and banks.

You had to be well-connected with the right people.

Saving Jews was not achieved with weapons, but mainly with bribes and tough negotiations.

Yonatan Nir

Wilfrid came from a wealthy Anglo-German Jewish family and was a businessman and a philanthropist, so money was not a problem.

Those who tried to save thousands of Jews, like Wilfrid, had to make very difficult decisions and priorities – whom to save and whom to leave behind.

During the 1930s, there were about 500,000 Jews in Germany. Only 300,000 managed to leave before the Second World War. The rest had to stay – the sick and the elderly, those who could not afford to pay for their passes to ‘Palestina’ (Israel before 1948) or people who could not afford other visas.

Steven Spielberg is credited for making Oskar Schindler known outside the Jewish community. Credit: Matt Crossick/PA/Alamy/AAP Image

“That so many people had to be left behind, which brought a feeling of guilt, contributed to the fact that many stories about saving Jews were kept out of the limelight,” Yonatan says.

This is one of the reasons we never hear stories like Wilfrid's.

We are all familiar with the Oskar Schindler story, but there are many more, and Wilfrid's is only one of them.