I’m fundraising to allow my group 3GNJ (Descendants of Holocaust Survivors) to continue telling the story of our grandparents and their Holocaust survival stories. I recently joined this group and I am going through training starting this week to be able to tell my grandfather and mother's story of survival.
My grandfather Walter Ukalo was not Jewish. His family were next door neighbors of my grandmother, Dorothy, her parents and siblings growing up. My mother's natural parents, Gina and Isiu, were separately killed by the Nazis. Dorothy raised her niece, my mother Sabina, and eventually married Walter, who had been in love with her since they were eight years old. Walter saved Dorothy's whole family and many others as well. He was part of an underground network called Zegota who distributed fake papers to Jews to help save them.
In 1979, he was honored by Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Authority as a Righteous Among the Nations for having risked his life to save Jews during the Holocaust. The criteria for being designated one of the righteous is quite rigorous. They include the following: The rescuer was not Jewish; A Jewish individual who is likely to have been killed was saved by them; The rescuer knew that they were risking their own lives and lastly they sought and received no compensation as a condition of theor rescue efforts. My grandfather has a tree at Yad Vashem in Israel and is also listed in the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.
I grew up hearing the stories of their survival and decide that his story deserves to be shared to ensure this never happens again.
I’m so very proud and grateful of my grandfather and what he did to save my family and many other families. I would appreciate greatly any help you can give to allow our incredible group to tell these stories to students in middle and high school. Although we are a volunteer organization, there is a $360 cost per school visit to continue these efforts. 
