At the age of 107, a teacher died who saved hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust

Johan van Halst, director of a Dutch religious school that saved hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust, then became a senator, died at the age of 107 years, writes CNN with reference to the Dutch Senate.

Фото: Depositphotos

Khalst was the director of a college whose courtyard bordered the center where Jewish children were kept before being sent to a concentration camp. He dragged the children over the fence and hid them at school, and then sent them to safe places.

“Just imagine 80, 90, maybe 70 or 100 children, and you have to decide who to take with you. It was the most difficult,” Hulst recalled about the period of his life in 1943.

“You understand that you cannot take all the children. YOU know that the children you leave behind will die. I took twelve children. Later I asked myself, why not thirteen?” he said.

After the war, Halst became a member of the Christian Democratic Appeals Party, and then a senator.

The memorial and museum dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust in Israel Yad Vashem honored Halst with the title of Righteous Among the Nations - a title for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

“Van Hulst will be remembered by all Jewish people for his valiant efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust,” said Yad Vashem spokesman Simmie Allen.

In 2012, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed a tribute to Khalst.

“We say that those who save one life save the universe. You have saved hundreds of universes, and I want to thank you not only on behalf of the Jewish people, but also on behalf of humanity,” Netanyahu said.

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