Relative: Egyptian Family Rejects Israel Honor

CAIRO (AP) — A member of the family of the first Arab honored by Israel for risking his life to save Jews during the Holocaust says the family isn't interested in the recognition. The Egyptian doctor Mohamed Helmy was honored posthumously last month by Israel's Holocaust memorial for hiding Jews in Berlin during the Nazis' genocide, but a family member tracked down by The Associated Press this week in Cairo said her relatives wouldn't accept the award, one of Israel's most prestigious. Last month, he was honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Museum as "Righteous Among the Nations" — the highest honor given to a non-Jew for risking great personal dangers to rescue Jews from the Nazis' gas chambers. Typically, the museum tries to track down living family members to present the award in a ceremony, but in the case of Helmy, who died in 1982 in Berlin, Yad Vashem said it had not been able to find any living relatives. Yad Vashem says it has other names of relatives of Helmy that appeared in his will as his heirs and Yad Vashem forwarded this information to the Egyptian ambassador in Israel and were informed that authorities in Egypt were looking to find them.

 

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