Righteous among the Nations and Luckner Home

We have already described a few times the existence of the Gertrude Luckner Home in Nahariyah on our site, a home that was established by Father Daniel Rufeisen, founder of the Hebrew speaking, Catholic community in Haifa, and Elisheva Hemker (see here). The “HaKatseh” Center – a center for arts, culture and society in the Galilee – (see here) supported Noa, who documented the Righteous among the Nations who lived in the Luckner Home and the story of this special house. The documentation is a part of the exhibition and project “Veterans” of the center. Noa is a pupil in middle school from Kabri, who enlisted for the project within the framework of a personal commitment project in the community.

The project is dedicated to the wonderful people who risked their lives to save human lives.

The initial information on the house and it founders, Noa found on the internet. Noa and Miriam Peleg, from the team of the “HaKatseh” Center, who accompanied the project, visited the Luckner Home a number of times. They met with Martha Goldring, the director of the home, collected all possible information that could promote the project. A principal starting point was the list of those who had been residents in the home from the time of its establishment. Noa did a lot of wonderful work, intersecting the list of residents with the list of Righteous among the Nations that had been published by the Haifa municipality as well as publications of Yad VaShem.

In a meeting set up with Elisheva Hemker, she helped enormously in push the project further. Elisheva brought with her to the meeting the dossiers of the residents, in which there was much information. Elisheva, whose job it had been to track down the Righteous among the Nations who might be in need of Luckner Home, knew the residents very well and among them the Righteous among the Gentiles.

In order to complete their knowlesge, Noa and Miriam turned to Yad VaShem. After waiting a few months, the information arrived that completed the stories of some of the people. Regarding some, the information is still incomplete. Data like date of birth, details of the rescue stories or photographs are missing.

The sparse material and the lack of documentation are surprising but characterize the modesty of these wonderful people and their activity, carried out by order of their conscience and not in order to gain acclaim.

See the documentation here