World War II/Heartwarming

• Sir Nicholas Winton, who orchestrated the rescue of 669 Jewish children from Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, meets some of those who owe their life to him.
• St. Maximilian Kolbe: A Polish priest and monk who, during World War Two, sheltered 2,000 Jews in his monastery. He also operated an illegal underground radio station that vilified Nazism. Eventually he was arrested and sent to Auchwitz. While there, the camp commander ordered 10 prisoners from Kolbe's cell block starved to death to deter escape attempts. One of the prisoners selected cried out that he had a family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place. Kolbe led the others in songs and prayer for three weeks, telling them they would soon be with the Virgin Mary in heaven. At the end, the guards came in to kill Kolbe. Kolbe held out his arm and prayed while he received a lethal injection. Kolbe was declared a saint in 1982. He is the patron of political prisoners.
  • What made it even better? The man he saved was at his canonization.
  • In this troper's opinion, the most heartwarming aspect of Kolbes sacrifice were his personal views on Jews. Before the war, he was a known and vocal supporter of antisemitic and nationalist movements in Poland . But in spite of those views, he still was ready for sacrifice for a man, who just few years earlier he would gladly forcibly remove from Poland.
    • Ahem. Kolbe was far from an anti-Semite, even for his day. While, yes, he was concerned with converting Jews, he did not, it appears, take part in hatred for the Jews. In fact, during the war, he risked his life and the lives of his monks to shelter at least 2,000 Jews at his monastery at Niepokalanów. The closest he may have come to anti-Semitism was anti-Zionism, engendered by assuming The Protocols of the Elders of Zion wasn't fake, a failing that all too many people fell to at the time. If anything, his real ire was reserved for Freemasonry, after seeing atheistic Mason mobs rioting in Rome during his seminary days. This is one explanation of Kolbe's motivations.
• Brother Zenon 'Zeno' Zebrowski a Franciscan monk who truly lived to his call helping Japanese people during and after war, especially orphans. He was send there by (mentioned above) Maximilian Kolbe who stayed in Asia on mission but decided to come back to Poland to help his country. He was caught afterwards and you know the rest of his story...But Zenon remained in Japan and greatly helped people there. Please,just read his story on this website. This person inspired this troper to be kind, non-judgemental and always helpful.
• For that matter, Pius XII. Contrary to the image as a 'Nazi sympathizer', he saved many, many Jews as seen here: http://www.ptwf.org/Downloads/Did+
• In a small German village, with a concentration camp nearby, everybody was ordered to let some prisoners from the camp work on their fields. They weren't allowed to speak to the prisoners, and weren't allowed to give food to the skinny men. One of the farmers refused. 'If I can't give them food, they aren't going to work on my fields.' This could have cost his life.
• After Germany was defeated, some Polish soldiers were housed in the farm of this troper's grandpa. When they went away, one of the soldiers demanded the golden chain of the clock of this troper's great-great-grandpa. The officer noticed, and forbid it. He later came back and said: 'Hide the radio.' They did, and when the other soldiers came back one more time, they didn't loot the most valuable object in the house. The Polish officer didn't like Germans, but he didn't like his troops to rob civilians even more.
• This troper's great-grandpa went once to the place where his oldest sons were garrisoned, to meet them just when they were outside. He had brought a cart and took them back home. They didn't fight in the war (this troper's great-grandpa, however, did. He couldn't volunteer, he had to to save his family from the KZ)
• There's also the remarkable story of Dr. Hans Münch, who worked as a medical researcher and doctor at Auschwitz, and was involved with the human experimentation started by Josef Mengele. Here's the heartwarming part: Münch deliberately designed his studies to be harmless, and be as expansive and prolonged as possible, to shield as many people as he could from being killed or used in less humane experiments. He also flat-out refused to participate in "making selections" (i.e., selecting incoming prisoners for experimentation or gassing.) He also treated the prisoners who were assigned to work alongside him in the lab with kindness, and ultimately helped a few of them escape. At the end of the war, he was captured and put on trial for war crimes, and acquitted when several former inmates testified on his behalf. From the verdict:

The accused Hans Munch was acquitted by the Highest People Court in the whole extent of the accusation, as it results from Part III of the statement, not only because he did not commit any crime of harm against the camp prisoners, but because he had a benevolent attitude toward them and helped them, while he had to carry the responsibility. He did this independently from the nationality, race and religious origin and political conviction of the prisoners.

• During the unveiling of the World War II memorial in the US, two aging veterans found themselves meeting two busloads of children on a field trip. The children, without hesitation, stood up as one and applauded.
• During World War II and the London bombings, Queen Elizabeth^[1] refused to leave Buckingham Palace, sharing the difficulties and dangers as the rest of her people, even when the Palace was being bombed. When asked why, she replied:

The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave.

• • And when Buckingham Palace was damaged by bombing, she said:

I'm glad we've been bombed. It makes me feel like I can look the East End in the face.

• The evacuation of the Jews in Denmark during World War II: The wiki article, Another good article... If you're ready for tears.
  • The Danes get a Crowning Moment of Awesome for saving Danish Jews and resisting Nazi oppression (mostly nonviolently) for four years, but they earned another Crowning Moment of Heartwarming after the war. General Dr. Werner Best and General Hermann von Hanneken, the two highest Nazi officials in Denmark during the war, went on trial for ordering brutal acts of counter-sabotage against the Danes and for deporting Danish Jews. Both were found guilty, with von Hanneken receiving a sentence of eight years imprisonment and Best getting the death penalty. Both appealed. I'll let A Force More Powerful explain the rest: "Best's sentence was reduced to five years and General von Hanneken was set free. Resistance had not made the Danes incapable of leniency."
    • Check the Other Wiki's article linked above, "He [Werner Best] was aware of the efforts by Duckwitz to have the roundup cancelled and obviously also knew about the potential escape of the Jews to Sweden, but he essentially looked the other way..." So the Danish did not pursue vengeance against a man who did not persecute them, even if he was the face of Nazi authority and the most obvious scapegoat.
• In early 1943, the SS and the Gestapo initiated "the Final Roundup," snatching all the remaining Jews in Berlin with the intention of putting them in the concentration camps. They did not however, collect non-Jewish spouses, and soon after the roundup began, a small group of German women visited the Jewish community's administration building at Rosenstrasse 2-4, wanting to see their Jewish husbands. They were rebuffed. This sparked a wave of protests at Rosenstrasse which so embarrassed (and frightened) the Nazis that they let the Jews with non-Jewish wives free. In May of that year, Himmler's deputy released all intermarried Jews from the camps.
• Since we're currently talking about Nazis, this troper would like to give a mention to John Rabe. He was a Nazi party member, yet when the Japanese invaded Nanking, he, together with some other westerns who stayed in the city, set up the Nanking Safety Zone to safe the inhabitants of Nanking from the atrocities of the Japanese army. He was damn successful, saving an estimate of 200,000 - 250,000 people. After the war, when famine hit Germany, he and his family were partly supported by money and food packages from sent by Chinese government
• This Troper once heard of a story about several Jewish children hiding from the Nazis in an attic. The Germans did a sweep of the village they were in, and a soldier found them in the attic. When the soldier's commanding officer called out to him if he had found anyone, he replied with a no and left them alone.
• A group of Jewish women were being rescued by soldiers after having gone on a death march. One of the women met the first soldier coming in, and explained at the devastation of the emaciated, dying people around her, she said, "I'm Jewish." The soldier replied, in broken German, "So am I." He was American.
  • It's possible that this happened more than once. We know that this happened to Gerda Weissmann and Kurt Klein - later Mr. and Mrs. Kurt and Gerda Klein. The soldier, Kurt Klein, was a German who fled to America and whose parents were killed by the Nazis.
• The Righteous Among the Nations in general were decent human beings who did the right thing during the Holocaust and sheltered Jews from German persecution or deportation. Most notable among their number is Oskar Schindler, whose exploits are well known. A less well-known one is Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who served as a consul in Lithuania. During the Holocaust, he issued transit visas to thousands of Jews to assist them in reaching safety to Japan, risking his career, his life, and that of his family. It's disputed how many Jews he saved; the accepted range seems to be between 6,000 and 10,000. When asked why he did it, he said the following:

You want to know about my motivation, don't you? Well. It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them. Among the refugees were the elderly and women. They were so desperate that they went so far as to kiss my shoes, Yes, I actually witnessed such scenes with my own eyes. Also, I felt at that time, that the Japanese government did not have any uniform opinion in Tokyo. Some Japanese military leaders were just scared because of the pressure from the Nazis; while other officials in the Home Ministry were simply ambivalent. People in Tokyo were not united. I felt it silly to deal with them. So, I made up my mind not to wait for their reply. I knew that somebody would surely complain about me in the future. But, I myself thought this would be the right thing to do. There is nothing wrong in saving many people's lives... The spirit of humanity, philanthropy... neighborly friendship... with this spirit, I ventured to do what I did, confronting this most difficult situation---and because of this reason, I went ahead with redoubled courage.

Bad. Ass. Pacifist.

• • Even less recognized are the contributions of two Dutch consular officers, Jan Zwartendjik and L.P.J. de Decker. In order to get a transit visa, the Jews needed somewhere to go. Some Dutch Jewish refugees asked for permission to transfer to Curacao, a island that was a Dutch possession off the coast of South America. Curacao didn't require an entrance visa, but did require the permission of the governor. De Decker and Zwartendjik left that second part off the visa, making it much easier for Sugihara to issue visas. The Japanese government might also qualify, for not deporting those Jews who just stayed in Japan, instead moving them to Shanghai, and swearing that they would refuse to give them up to the Germans, despite Nazi pressure to do just that.
  • Speaking of the Righteous Among Nations, Princess Alice, mother of Prince Phillip of England, was an emotionally fragile woman (she was hospitalized following a nervous breakdown) who was also deaf. Nevertheless, she had her own Crowning Moment of Awesome when she hid a Jewish family from the Nazis.
  • Herman Göering's brother Albert was a ballsy motherfucker who hid many Jews from the Nazis and used his influence in Nazi circles to avoid capture of both himself and the Jews.
• The North African campaign between the German Africa Korps and the British 8th Army during World War 2 was often called "The Gentleman's War", for the unbelievable gallantry displayed by both sides. To demonstrate, a British soldier was critically wounded during the Battle of El Alamein. He was brought to a British field hospital, and found himself lying beside a German prisoner who had also been critically wounded. He reached out and squeezed the German soldier's hand. The German soldier squeezed back. He lost consciousness and woke up the next morning, and found that his German companion was gone. When he asked what happened to the man beside him, the doctor simply replied "He died during the night. You were still holding hands."
• When the Nazis invaded a Greek island, they went to the mayor and the bishop, who were both Eastern Orthodox Christians and told them "Write down the names of all the Jews on this island and give them to us." A few days later, the mayor and bishop come back and hand over a paper with only two names written on it: THEIR OWN NAMES. The bishop then says "If you want to take them, you have to take us, too."
  • The island was Zakynthos. The rest of the community on the island hid the Jews (about 275) for the duration of the Nazi occupation.
  • In 1953, a series of earthquakes collapsed all but a few buildings on the island. The first relief ship was from Israel, along with the message: "The Jews of Zakynthos have never forgotten their Mayor and their beloved Bishop and what they did for us."
• The Dutch village of Nieuwlande, where the people agreed that every household would hide at least one Jew.
• Denmark's role in World War II. That's one of the biggest Crowning Moment of Heartwarming FULL STOPS in history. Consider this. A small country, not very powerful, shares its only land border with Germany, headquarters of the Nazi party and anti-Jewish movement. Denmark was not neutral- it was occupied, and complied peacefully with Germany to the point that Hitler declared Denmark the model that all occupied countries should aspire to. But when the police came to round up Danish Jews, the people of Denmark, including political officials and the king, banded together and made sure that 99% of Danish Jews survived the Holocaust. The ones that were sent to camps were sent almost entirely to a camp in Czechoslovakia, where the Danish Red Cross was stationed to monitor the health and conditions for not just the Danish Jews, but for every person in the camp. Full. Bloody. Stop.
  • The Israeli government was going to list several members of the Danish resistance as Righteous Among the Nations. The individuals requested that the honor instead be granted to the resistance as a whole. The request was granted, the only organization so named.
  • I hope I'm not breaking any rules by writing this, but I'd just like to thank you. I'm Danish, and even though these events lay several generations back, many of my friends feel ashamed and angry about the way Denmark cooperated with Germany back then. Personally I feel it was the best way to avoid needless violence, but many don't agree, and a lot tend to forget the massive effort the Danish put into saving the Jews. I'm not a person who makes a big deal about loving one's country, but seeing that people remember and appreciate Denmarks actions during the war make me tear up a little and feel a bit more proud of being Danish. Thank you.
    • No, thank you. We'll never forget.
    • The above exchange brought tears to my eyes. I think I can believe in humanity again.
    • Seconded and coming from someone who went through pretty much every Heartwarming page in Troper Tales and didn't well up once.
    • Thirded, by a Brazilian. Allow me to add one thing: "There is a lovely land, with spreading, shady beeches, near salty eastern beach. Its hills and valleys gently fall. Its ancient name is Denmark, and it is Freya's hall..." - Danes, not only you did wonderfully, plus the added Guile Hero (and you can't go wrong when you do Guile Hero, really, so, even more points) thing in cheating Hitler, your anthem is AWESOME, and you folks managed to show that you can never truly impede someone that has an ancient name.
    • Fourthed, fifthed and sixth by this American troper. Just because they didn't use guns and bombs, that doesn't mean the Danes didn't fight the Nazis.
    • I am an Israeli-Jewish person and I love Denmark to death because of the way the Danes and Denmark's government were acting during WWII. To me, they were and are the most noble people in the world. I know I'm not the only one who thinks like that - lots of Israeli Jews love Denmark and feels very grateful because of that. Be proud of your nation, Danes, you earned it.
    • As a German who lived near Denmark for half his life: no, thank you, too. I wish my grandparents' generation had as much courage, and kindness, and love as your people.
• Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychologist in Germany, worked at many hospitals treating the depressed and the suicidal in the late 1930s. He saved several from Nazi-enforced euthanasia, but his family, and most of his patients, were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942. He then continued to help many of the people in the camps keep on going and not commit suicide, until he was moved to Auschwitz and then to Turkheim. His wife, mother and father were killed at Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz respectively, but Frankl survived to be liberated by the Americans in 1945. The experience of the concentration camps made Frankl realise the truth of Nietzsche's statement "He who has a why to live can endure any how" and he based an entire philosophy and field of psychology, logotherapy, around it. He died in 1997 after writing over thirty books and teaching seminars all over the world.
• A Hope Spot that didn't go away: the 'the Reich's youngest Nazi' was actually a young Jewish boy who fled the destruction of his family. A kind Latvian soldier, whose unit was going to be absorbed into the S.S., dreamt up a Masquerade to keep the boy alive - as a Nazi mascot. The boy managed to emigrate to Australia after the war, but kept his experiences secret from his wife, family, and friends till 1997.
• The history of the Caribia and the Koenigstein ships; both ships departed from Hamburg in 1939 full of Jewish families planning to arrive in Barbados and Trinidad, but thanks to the pressure of Hitler they weren't allow to arrive there, they tried to arrive in Venezuela and then president Eleazar Lopez Contreras pretty much went against his cabinet and Hitler himself allowing them to arrive to Puerto Cabello, there, in the middle of the night they were received by over 50 families in Mampote, where they stayed with them. Truly something that gives you back hope about humankind.
• What Canada did for Netherlands during World War II:
  • First, the Dutch Royal family took refuge in Ottawa from the German occupation of Netherlands and Princess Margriet was born there while in exile. One of the maternity wards of the Ottawa Civic Hospital, where she was, was temporarily declared extraterritorial, so Margriet could gain her citizenship only from her mother, making her Dutch instead of Dutch-Canadian.
  • Second, the First Canadian Army was responsible for liberating Netherlands in 1945. Afterwards, they would send thousands of tulips (the Dutch national flower) to Ottawa in gratitude. And the following year and every year after that, the Dutch Royal family did the same thing. These donations of flowers would later become a tradition of the Canadian Tulip Festival, one of the largest tulip festivals in the world and held annually in Ottawa, which soon became famous for these tulips. The donations and the festival are still taking place, even in 2018.
    • Also, the statue The Man With Two Hats in Commissioners Park, Ottawa. Engraved on the statue is this:

During the Second World War, Canadian soldiers played a crucial role in the liberation of the Netherlands. With the donation of this monument - an expression of joy and a celebration of freedom - the Netherlands pays lasting tribute to Canada.
A statue identical to this one stands in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands. The twin monuments symbolically link Canada and the Netherlands; though separated by an ocean, the two countries will forever be close friends.
Her Royal Highness Princess Margriet of the Netherlands unveiled the monument in Ottawa on May 11, 2002, and the other in Apeldoorn on May 2, 2000.

• The evacuation of Dunkirk in WWII, when what could have been the Allies' greatest defeat turned into a story of triumph that firmed Britain's will to fight even when they were the only unoccupied European country left in the battle against the Axis. The Allies had expected to only be able to save a few thousand men, but thanks to the efforts of 700 private boats and yachts - many of which the owners insisted to steer themselves - hundreds of thousands managed to escape. This would lead to Churchill's famous speech. "We shall fight on the beaches [...] we shall never surrender".
  • Even more heartwarming than the British evacuation, the British promise of evacuation to the French, then the French forces staying behind to cover the English retreat.
• Read this one in a book on WWII years ago, sadly I can't remember the books title but here we go. During the march of the allies across Germany a US squad was patrolling through a village just recently taken. One of the soldiers while looking around takes off running from the rest of the squad while shouting in German. When the rest of the squad finds him, he is standing in front of a house hugging an older German woman and little boy. The soldier was a German immigrant, who had just realized he was in his home town; the woman was his mother, and the kid was his little brother.
• There's a story in my town in Germany that goes like this: In the spring of 1945, when the German army was crumbling, and the Americans invaded, they had orders to capture this town and the important railroad going through it. There weren't a whole lot of defenders, but there was a few overzealous SS officers that were going to fight to the death. The boss of the largest company in town convinced them not to fight by giving them his own car and fuel (a real treasure in those days) so they could flee. The SS men still killed the driver, maybe because of shame of their "cowardice".
• A rather unlikely case - a documentary in a Religious Studies lesson on Hiroshima. Most of the second half was (as you would expect) a heartrending mixture of Tear Jerker and Nightmare Fuel, but there was one story told by a man who'd been a little boy at the time. He was rescued from the rubble by a young soldier, who then carried him through the remains of the city, past more and more scenes of hopelessness... only to have his father run over, saying 'that's my son!'. The two were reunited, and the sequence was the one ray of hope in the whole film. For once, happy tears.
• During WWII, my friend's grandpa was captured and tortured, but he refused to reveal his mission. The Japanese said if he didn't spill, they would kill the other five captured men. He wouldn't budge. He escaped, but he had to live with their blood on his hands. 25 years later, he found out they all lived. Not a single one talked. GMH
• Remembering that some Nazis are still human, just soldiers that had to follow orders: Nazis play with a kitten.
  • And offering the kitten a flower to let go of the hand grenade?
• This moment was a delayed one which happened after George McGovern accidentally had a bomb on his plane release while over a civilian farm in Austria and it caused great damage. Decades later while making a public appearance there, McGovern mentioned the incident in the media and how he was kicking himself for years for the accident. As it happened, the owner of that farm heard that and made a public statement to tell McGovern that no one was hurt and he felt it was worth the trouble if it helped enable the defeat of Nazi Germany in some small way.
• The story of "Private" Wojtek. Everything Is Worse With Bears? Nie.
• The nurses. These strong, brave, badass women volunteered and spent their time caring for horribly wounded soldiers, often with no breaks, respite, or help, often in the face of danger. In some cases, they were slaughtered. But they did their job, and they did it well, and they saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives. Thank you so much.

1. ↑ To clarify, the current Elizabeth didn't become Queen until 1952. This refers to her mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Queen consort.