Martha Sharp
Encyclopedia
Martha Ingham Dickie Sharp-Cogan (1905–1999) was an American
philanthropist
who, along with her husband Waitstill Sharp
, helped hundreds of Jews
to escape Nazi persecution by sending them off through Czechoslovakia
, the women's college
of Brown University
, and later studied in the field of Social Work at Northwestern University
’s Recreation Training School centered in Hull House
, a Chicago settlement. When her training was complete, she earned the position Director of Girls’ Work where she acted as social worker to over 500 girls. Her devotion to service and helping others is often cited as the reason she entered the field.
In 1927, she married Waitstill Hastings Sharp taking temporary leave, although she would never return to the profession. The two lived in Wellesley, Massachusetts
.
When Waitstill was ordained a Unitarian
minister in 1933, he was assigned to a small church in Meadville, Pennsylvania
where his wife followed. She acted almost as a second minister, organizing most of the youth work, education activities, and women's meetings, as well as church suppers. As her husband was often difficult to talk to, church members would go to Martha, who was always happy to lend an ear.
unfold in Europe
, she and her husband started an "International Relations Club". In November 1938, following the Munich Pact which ceded the Sudetenland
to Hitler
, the Sharps led a discussion titled "The Rape of Czechoslovakia."
Dr. Robert Dexter
, head of the Department of Social Relations for the Executive Committee of the AUA, along with Quaker representative Richard Wood traveled to Europe to start contacts in Geneva
, London
and Paris, to create a network of relief workers and sympathetic politicians. In November 1938, they sent back a report that over 20,000 people would need immediate emigration assistance. Under Dexter's leadership, a temporary committee was formed to help endangered refugees and in May 1940, the organization was official founded as the Unitarian Service Committee.
Martha and Waitstill Sharp were recruited to work in Czechoslovakia, where a large community of Unitarians were present under the leadership of Norbert Capek
. Later Martha and Waitstill recalled grave misgivings about leaving their children of seven and two, but they were convinced they would be well taken care of living with family friends inside the parsonage. Their church would be headed by Everett Baker in their absence, and they headed for London on 4 February 1939. On 14 March 1939, the Nazis were quickly advancing on Prague, but the Sharps decided to remain and continue their program, which was the most significant private American effort on behalf of endangered refugees in Czechoslovakia. In Prague, the Sharps worked closely with members of the American Friends Service Committee
to advance refugees' visa applications to Great Britain and elsewhere. Along with Waitstill, Martha administered a relief program after seeking advice from Alice Masaryk
and other prominent Czechs. On one occasion, Martha Sharp escorted 35 refugees, ranging from politicians to children whose parents had committed suicide, to Great Britain
. On a different occasion, she arranged for children to leave in accordance with local narrowing-law, by the "Care of Children from Germany", a British organization. In the summer, the Gestapo
, closed their offices, but Martha continued until August, and stopped only after learning that she faced arrest.
In May 1940, the president of the A.U.A., Frederick Eliot and USC's director, Robert Dexter asked Martha and Waitstill to go to France as their "ambassadors extraordinary
", to which the Sharps agreed again. The plan for a Paris office was canceled because France surrendered to the Nazis that Spring. Instead, the Sharps set up an office in neutral Portugal Lisbon
.
From the base of their office in Lisbon, Martha and Waitstill were able to help a number of Jewish children and several prominent Jewish intellectuals to escape Vichy France, including the German-Jewish novelist Lion Feuchtwanger
. Working with Donald Lowrie of the World YMCA
Martha also provided assistance to the families of Czech soldiers who were stranded in France and were hoping to use a sea route for escape. At the end of her 1940 posting in Europe, Martha escorted 27 children and 10 adults to America.
In 1943, Martha founded "Children to Palestine," with support from the Jewish women's organization Hadassah
. In this new role, Martha raised money for orphaned Jewish youth in Europe to start new lives in Palestine. In 1944, Martha returned to Lisbon, assuming the position of Associate European Director of the Unitarian Service Committee. In that capacity, she successfully negotiated the release of a number of Spanish refugees imprisoned in Portugal.
, which would mobilize resources in the event of a Soviet
attack. She resigned as President Dwight Eisenhower was inaugurated, and moved back to New York. By then, her marriage with Waitstill had degraded, and the two mutually separated, believing the hardships they'd gone through during World War II were just too much. She eventually remarried, and took the name Cogan.
Martha Sharp died in 1999, at the age of 94. She is survived by her daughter, Martha Sharp Joukowsky, a retired Brown University archaeology
professor
.
In the summer of 2006, Martha's and Waitstill's names were added to the list of "Righteous Among the Nations
", a wall in Israel
for Gentile
s who risked their own lives in helping as many escape the Holocaust as they could. Eva Feigl gave a speech in 2005, describing how she never forgot the day she saw Martha Sharp when they got to America, the day she saw freedom.
Artemis Joukowsky (the Sharps' grandchild) has been meeting with movie producers interested in turning their story into a film.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
who, along with her husband Waitstill Sharp
Waitstill Sharp
Waitstill Hastings Sharp was a Harvard College graduate and Unitarian minister. He was the son of naturalist author and professor Dallas Lore Sharp and Grace Hastings and a descendant of Thomas Hastings who came from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634...
, helped hundreds of Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
to escape Nazi persecution by sending them off through Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
Social Work
She attended Pembroke CollegePembroke College (Brown University)
Pembroke College in Brown University was the coordinate women's college for Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1891 and closed in 1971.-Founding and early history:...
, the women's college
Women's college
Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women...
of Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, and later studied in the field of Social Work at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
’s Recreation Training School centered in Hull House
Hull House
Hull House is a settlement house in the United States that was co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. Located in the Near West Side of , Hull House opened its doors to the recently arrived European immigrants. By 1911, Hull House had grown to 13 buildings. In 1912 the Hull...
, a Chicago settlement. When her training was complete, she earned the position Director of Girls’ Work where she acted as social worker to over 500 girls. Her devotion to service and helping others is often cited as the reason she entered the field.
In 1927, she married Waitstill Hastings Sharp taking temporary leave, although she would never return to the profession. The two lived in Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley, Massachusetts
Wellesley is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of Greater Boston. The population was 27,982 at the time of the 2010 census.It is best known as the home of Wellesley College and Babson College...
.
When Waitstill was ordained a Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
minister in 1933, he was assigned to a small church in Meadville, Pennsylvania
Meadville, Pennsylvania
Meadville is a city in and the county seat of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city is generally considered part of the Pittsburgh Tri-State and is within 40 miles of Erie, Pennsylvania. It was the first permanent settlement in northwest Pennsylvania...
where his wife followed. She acted almost as a second minister, organizing most of the youth work, education activities, and women's meetings, as well as church suppers. As her husband was often difficult to talk to, church members would go to Martha, who was always happy to lend an ear.
Foreign Affairs
Watching the events of early-World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
unfold in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, she and her husband started an "International Relations Club". In November 1938, following the Munich Pact which ceded the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
to Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, the Sharps led a discussion titled "The Rape of Czechoslovakia."
Dr. Robert Dexter
Robert Dexter
Robert Dexter was the founder of the Unitarian Service Committee, which during World War II was the most significant program of any American church in the rescue and assistance of Jewish refugees and the victims of Nazism in Europe.-Early life:...
, head of the Department of Social Relations for the Executive Committee of the AUA, along with Quaker representative Richard Wood traveled to Europe to start contacts in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Paris, to create a network of relief workers and sympathetic politicians. In November 1938, they sent back a report that over 20,000 people would need immediate emigration assistance. Under Dexter's leadership, a temporary committee was formed to help endangered refugees and in May 1940, the organization was official founded as the Unitarian Service Committee.
Martha and Waitstill Sharp were recruited to work in Czechoslovakia, where a large community of Unitarians were present under the leadership of Norbert Capek
Norbert Capek
Norbert Fabián Čapek was the founder of the modern Unitarian Church in the Czech Republic.-Early life:Čapek was born into a Roman Catholic family on 3 June 1870, in Radomyšl, a village in Strakonice District in southern Bohemia. As a boy he wanted to join the priesthood, but soon became...
. Later Martha and Waitstill recalled grave misgivings about leaving their children of seven and two, but they were convinced they would be well taken care of living with family friends inside the parsonage. Their church would be headed by Everett Baker in their absence, and they headed for London on 4 February 1939. On 14 March 1939, the Nazis were quickly advancing on Prague, but the Sharps decided to remain and continue their program, which was the most significant private American effort on behalf of endangered refugees in Czechoslovakia. In Prague, the Sharps worked closely with members of the American Friends Service Committee
American Friends Service Committee
The American Friends Service Committee is a Religious Society of Friends affiliated organization which works for peace and social justice in the United States and around the world...
to advance refugees' visa applications to Great Britain and elsewhere. Along with Waitstill, Martha administered a relief program after seeking advice from Alice Masaryk
Masaryk
- Family name :* Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak statesman, sociologist, philosopher, and the first President and founder of Czechoslovakia...
and other prominent Czechs. On one occasion, Martha Sharp escorted 35 refugees, ranging from politicians to children whose parents had committed suicide, to Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
. On a different occasion, she arranged for children to leave in accordance with local narrowing-law, by the "Care of Children from Germany", a British organization. In the summer, the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
, closed their offices, but Martha continued until August, and stopped only after learning that she faced arrest.
In May 1940, the president of the A.U.A., Frederick Eliot and USC's director, Robert Dexter asked Martha and Waitstill to go to France as their "ambassadors extraordinary
Ambassador
An ambassador is the highest ranking diplomat who represents a nation and is usually accredited to a foreign sovereign or government, or to an international organization....
", to which the Sharps agreed again. The plan for a Paris office was canceled because France surrendered to the Nazis that Spring. Instead, the Sharps set up an office in neutral Portugal Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
.
From the base of their office in Lisbon, Martha and Waitstill were able to help a number of Jewish children and several prominent Jewish intellectuals to escape Vichy France, including the German-Jewish novelist Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....
. Working with Donald Lowrie of the World YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
Martha also provided assistance to the families of Czech soldiers who were stranded in France and were hoping to use a sea route for escape. At the end of her 1940 posting in Europe, Martha escorted 27 children and 10 adults to America.
In 1943, Martha founded "Children to Palestine," with support from the Jewish women's organization Hadassah
Hadassah
Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America is an American Jewish volunteer women's organization. Founded in 1912 by Henrietta Szold, it is one of the largest international Jewish organizations, with around...
. In this new role, Martha raised money for orphaned Jewish youth in Europe to start new lives in Palestine. In 1944, Martha returned to Lisbon, assuming the position of Associate European Director of the Unitarian Service Committee. In that capacity, she successfully negotiated the release of a number of Spanish refugees imprisoned in Portugal.
Post World War II
In 1950, Martha accepted a position in the National Security Resources BoardNational Security Resources Board
The National Security Resources Board was a United States board created by the National Security Act of 1947. It was a part of Cold War Civil defense, and obviously United States Civil Defense in particular...
, which would mobilize resources in the event of a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
attack. She resigned as President Dwight Eisenhower was inaugurated, and moved back to New York. By then, her marriage with Waitstill had degraded, and the two mutually separated, believing the hardships they'd gone through during World War II were just too much. She eventually remarried, and took the name Cogan.
Martha Sharp died in 1999, at the age of 94. She is survived by her daughter, Martha Sharp Joukowsky, a retired Brown University archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
.
In the summer of 2006, Martha's and Waitstill's names were added to the list of "Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
", a wall in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
for Gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
s who risked their own lives in helping as many escape the Holocaust as they could. Eva Feigl gave a speech in 2005, describing how she never forgot the day she saw Martha Sharp when they got to America, the day she saw freedom.
Artemis Joukowsky (the Sharps' grandchild) has been meeting with movie producers interested in turning their story into a film.