Wilfrid B. Israel

Wilfrid B. Israel was a British-born member of an important Berlin Jewish family and a strong supporter of Zionism.

Before and during the World War II Israel was active in aiding Jews escape Nazi tyranny. He is believed to have rescued some 2,600 children in 1944-45. [Foot, MRD (1976), Resistance (London: Eyre Methuen)] On March 26 1943 Israel left London for Lisbon, Portugal and spent the next two months investigating the situation of Jews on the peninsula; during WWII the fascist regimes in Spain and Portugal sympathized with Nazi Germany but refused to hand over Jews to the Germans. By the end of his trip Israel had found as many of 1,500 Jewish refugees living in Spain, many of whom he aided in finding passage to Palestine. Before Israel left the peninsula he had proposed a plan to the British government to aid the Jewish refugees in Spain. Israel was killed on 01 June1943 when British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 was shot down over the Bay of Biscay by eight German Junkers Ju 88s. cite book |last=Bauer |first=Yehuda |authorlink=Yehuda Bauer |title=American Jewry and the Holocaust: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1939-1945 |year=1981 |publisher=Wayne State University |location=Detroit |id=ISBN 0-8143-1672-7
pages= ]

Notes

The Wilfrid Israel Museum [http://www.wilfrid.org.il/middle/about.html] in Kibbutz Hazorea, Israel, is a museum of far east, near east, and local archaeological finds, dedicated to the memory of Wilfrid Israel.

Further reading

Ian Colvin (1957), "Flight 777" (Evans Brothers)

References