“Jewish Rescuer Citation” for Odette and Moussa Abadi

January 26, 2020

While the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” is now widely known, there is another, less famous but no less important recognition: the “Jewish Rescuer Citation”. Many Jews saved their companions during the Shoah at the risk of their own lives, sparing them certain death. Odette and Moussa Abadi were among them.

Thousands of Jews were saved by other Jews across Europe during the Shoah. Many of these rescuers, rather than fleeing to ensure their own safety, chose to help other Jews, showing remarkable bravery. Yet these deeply human acts often have no recognition other than the words of those they saved.

The “B’nai B’rith World Center – Jerusalem” and the “Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust (JRJ)” created the “Jewish Rescuer Citation” in 2011 to honour and respect the rescue of Jews by other Jews. The citation aims to shed light on a subject too rarely addressed when the Shoah is discussed: Jewish resistance. B’nai B’rith and the JRJ have recognised more than 270 rescuers who worked in France, Hungary, Greece, Germany, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania.

In 2019, Gila Yeheskeli, Moussa Abadi’s niece, wrote to the award committee to submit the names of Odette and Moussa for this citation. Her application received a positive answer. Odette and Moussa therefore had the honour of receiving the “Jewish Rescuer Citation” on April 21, 2020 (Yom HaShoah) in the Martyrs’ Forest^(*), near Jerusalem.

The ceremony was broadcast live on B’nai B’rith’s Facebook account and on YouTube. Gila, Moussa’s niece, spoke at the ceremony.

(*) The Martyrs’ Forest (יער הקדושים) (Ya’ar HaKdoshim) is a forest on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Located west of the Eshtaol forest near the town of Beit Meir, it was created in 1951 by the Jewish National Fund. It has six million trees, symbolising the six million Jews who perished in the Shoah.