Garden of Wilmington
The Garden of Righteous Gentiles is the first monument in the U.S. to Christians who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust. The idea originated with Halina Wind Preston of Wilmington, a survivor from Lvov, Poland who dedicated her life to Holocaust education. Memorial trees planted on November 16, 1981 each feature a bronze plaque bearing a rescuer’s name. Survivors settling in Delaware have honored their rescuers in the garden, along with Ger and Gerard van Raan, rescuers who eventually resided in Delaware.
The garden was formally dedicated on December 11, 1983. In the 1990s, a circular garden at the center was added – bisected with a path to encourage visitors to view it from different perspectives. A belt of cherry laurels encloses the rear of the garden.
Considerable thought went into a new design with the same goals for the garden’s rededication on April 7, 2013. Grenfell and mason Gabriel Gonzales created a semi-circular entrance backed by a low, serpentine wall. Lettering from the original monument was refinished and reinstalled on the new entrance, which also provides sufficient space for educational events. Behind the new wall, a bed of azaleas, Japanese maple, and cypresses, was chosen for their four-season attractiveness, hardiness and ease of maintenance. Enclosing the sides of the garden are serpentine belts of native inkberry hollies. A sculpture, In Memory of More Than One Million Children Who Perished During the Holocaust 1933 – 1945, now stands at the center of the Garden of the Righteous Gentiles.
Garden of Wilmington (Delaware)
People honoured in this Garden
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| Piprot d’Alleaume catholic priest who opened a school in Marseille-hotel where he took 15 Jewish girls, and in this way they found salvation |
| Amsterdam Artis Royal Zoo became a safe haven for all those who, during the war, fleeing from Nazi occupation in Holland |
| Noël Barrot he helped a family to escape from the Gestapo, procuring them food and false documents |
| Louis and Odille Ceulemans-Gryson husband and wife who saved Betti Blaugrund Shain life |
| King Christian of Denmark, the danish church and the danish people [biography on external website] smuggled almost the entire Danish Jewish population of 8,000 to safety in neutral Sweden during the October 1943 Jewish holidays |
| Krivienko he and his wife saved the life of Minna Kassow Kraut, who escaped from a concentration camp in Lithuania |
| Nora and Lois Loeffler a poor pianist who with her husband hid Erich Glenn during the German occupation of Austria |
| Maria Nickel was a deeply religious woman who managed to save the lives of Ruth and Walter Abraham and their child |
| Andrée and Suzanne Romain scued several Jewish children in Belgium |
| Leopold Socha and Stefan Wroblewski [biography on external website] they helped a small group of Polish Jews during the war, taking care of them for many months |
| Juzef Tunkewicz russian farmer saved the lives of at least 10 Jews and did so without seeking payment |
| Raoul Wallenberg the Swedish diplomat who rescued thousands Jews in Hungary |
| Unkown Righteous Gentiles ost Righteous Gentiles remained anonymous f or reasons of self - preservation |
| Ger and Gerard van Raan they saved the life of two Jewish children, pretending they were their grandchildren |