The Righteous Among the Nations. They are the ones who stood when it mattered, knowing that their actions, if discovered, would bring an immediate and brutal death sentence. Glenn’s talked about them many times. But there’s one story among the thousands that stands out from the rest – and for a reason you would never expect. You’ve probably never heard this story before, which is a travesty because if this man’s name was known far and wide the world would be a better place.
Tonight on The Glenn Beck Program, Glenn told the story of the kind of man the world desperately needs right now.
Below is a transcript of the monologue:
Well, if you look at all the news around the world, our job is to help you figure out how it all fits together and where we’re supposed to go, what do we do about it, how do we fix it?
Right now, too many people will talk about their political interest or even their national interests, and we need to talk about our values and our principles. We feel like we don’t belong to anything because we don’t have context, we don’t have perspective, and nobody is helping us say, “Well, wait a minute, what do we belong to?” Besides a party or even if we belong to a country, what does that country stand for?
We don’t understand what’s going on around the globe, and we can’t fix it because we’re only talking about interests. And you can look at this on Israel and Hamas. What is in the national interest of Israel? What is Hamas, in their religious interest, what are they doing? You don’t know who the good guys or the bad guys are, and if you’re watching the news, you’re being shown Israel as a bully to these poor Palestinians. Nobody likes a bully, right?
Sometimes the best way to understand is to go back in history when values and principles were really clear so you can see the patterns – have we seen this before? Has there been a solution before? That’s where I want to start tonight, in history, but we’re also going to talk to you about a border, an amazing story that nobody really is covering, the murder of a border agent, border patrol who was killed by an illegal who we had in custody four times, and each time we let him go with a $10 fine. Now he has killed one of our border agents.
And Dana Loesch is going to be joining us with a frank conversation on Stage 19, but I want to start again with history. And I wanted to tell you about the Righteous Among the Nations. Righteous Among the Nations, these are the people that actually went, and they risked their lives. They weren’t Jewish, but they risked their lives for somebody else. And they’re the ones who stood when it mattered, knowing that their actions if discovered would bring immediate and brutal death sentences, not just for them, but for their whole family.
We have talked about them many times on our broadcasts over the years, but there is one story among the thousands that stands out from the rest and for a reason that I don’t think you’d ever expect, and it will help us find our values and principles, how do we understand what’s happening in the world, and what are we supposed to do?
I’d never heard this story before until one of my producers brought it to me. You probably haven’t heard about it either, which is a travesty, because if this man’s name was known far and wide, the world would be a better place, and we’d be able to help see a path to peace. Now, let me tell you about the kind of man the world desperately needs right now.
He was a doctor. He was living in Berlin, Germany, and the year was 1942. Hitler’s death machinery was in full tilt. They were slaughtering Jews by the millions. Most were too terrified to do anything. I didn’t understand this when I first went over to Poland, and they were talking about how they were just arresting Jews out in the street. And I said, “There’s windows here. What happened to all these people? Why didn’t they look out?” You would be killed if you even moved the curtain to be able to look out.
Remember those pictures that we saw in Boston where we had our own FBI snipers looking at the windows, somebody looked out? That was the kind of situation it was in. You don’t look at the windows pretty soon. If you provided a Jew with any food, you’d get arrested, you’d be tried, and then you and your whole family would be killed. The consequences were very, very clear, and they were frightening.
So when it came time for a Nazi sweep of Berlin, tensions extremely high, any Jew found hiding or living in the city would be deported. In other words, they’d be sent away to die in a concentration camp. Well, that’s where we meet 21-year-old Anna Boros Gutman. Her mother and her grandparents shook with fear along with Anna. What were they going to do? Here come the Germans making another sweep. It was only a matter of time before the Nazis would condemn them, and they would die in one of the concentration camps as so many before them.
No one dared help them, let them into their house. There was too much hate, too much fear. Even if people wanted to help, the risk was just too great for most people, and the S.S. was coming. This was it, nowhere to turn. There they sat thinking we are going to suffer the same fate as so many before us. And then suddenly they heard a voice. A voice called out quietly, “Come with me, come on, hurry.”
It was her family physician. He took Anna and her family to his cabin. It was Anna, her mother, her stepfather, and her grandmother. Now, this doctor had decided to risk his life, his family’s life. How was he even going to feed them? Because everything was food rationed. You started needing more rations, who are you hiding? Eventually Anna’s family was sheltered in different locations, but Anna remained at the doctor’s cabin stowed away in a secret bunker on the cabin’s property.
I can’t imagine the terrifying moments when the S.S. came knocking, pounding on the door, searching the cabin, and they came frequently. But the doctor was smart, he would either step aside or talk his way through the interrogations. It had to be just as terrifying for him as it was for Anna because they would both die; both of their families would die. Would she panic? Would they find her? Would he slip? Would he give something away? What was going to happen next? Would someone rat them out?
This went on for two solid years. 1944, her mom and stepmom captured, Anna was still in the cabin. During their interrogation, the Nazis found out about the doctor and Anna. Now, they’re in trouble. The S.S. immediately set out for the cabin. When the doctors arrived or when the S.S. arrived, the doctor was there. He answered the door. He showed them around. He was confident.
He had outmaneuver the Nazis many times before, and this time he did it again. He had moved Anna to another home so she was safe, and the doctor escape punishment, and Anna was safe. She said later, “Doctor Helmy did everything for me out of the generosity of his heart and I will be grateful to him for eternity.”
Now, so what’s the catch? Why am I telling you this story? Because there’s a million of these stories, except this one is different. What is the catch to this story? Because we’ve heard them over and over again. It’s similar to all of the other Righteous Among the Nations, except this one big difference, the doctor’s name. The doctor’s name was Mohammed Helmy. He’s an Arab. He’s from Egypt. He stood up to the Nazis.
He knew, unlike so many people in the Middle East now that are running countries, he knew the Holocaust was real, and he stepped in and faced evil, stared it right in the eye and saved a family. That flies in the face of just about every societal rule at the time, and he did it. Well, he has been inducted as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, Dr. Helmy, the first Egyptian. In fact, he’s the first Arab to be named part of the Righteous Among the Nations. Imagine that, an Arab saving the life of a Jew. Why?
This isn’t likely in most places around the globe even today, but boy, could the world, especially the Middle East, use a dose and read a little bit more about people like Dr. Helmy. Instead, we have the opposite. Why did he do it? Because he knew principles and values. It wasn’t about even his own self-interest. It wasn’t about the interest of his race. It was about principles and values. He knew this was wrong.
Unfortunately, when he passed away in 1982, Yad Vashem had to track him down or track his family down and ask the family to come in and accept the award at Yad Vashem. They found three of his descendants living in Cairo. When they finally got in touch with them to present the award, the family declined it. They said, “If any other country offered to honor Helmy, we would have been happy with it.”
How said that is. The incredible legacy this man left for his family, peace, love, self-sacrifice, look beyond your own personal interest, look beyond the interests of your country. He risked his own life because he believed and was motivated by his values that I would imagine sounded a little bit like ours, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. If he were motivated by his own interests, he wouldn’t have saved anyone. It would’ve been too risky.
Everyone should know this story. Everyone should know this story, especially in the Middle East, so the kids would follow that example, they would know that the Holocaust was real and that an Arab did indeed save a Jew. Maybe if that happened, the next generation of Palestinians and Jews would not know hate, they would love one another. And if we all knew this story, maybe, just maybe, we would all begin to change the world.
