Some people went through life leaving the world noticeably better than they found it.
Nicholas Winton
In 1939, British stockbroker Nicholas Winton helped orchestrate the rescue of 669 children, primarily Jewish, fleeing Nazi persecution in Czechoslovakia. He found British foster families and raised money, as well as arranging the necessary paperwork to bring the children to safety.
His story didn’t become public until decades later because he never spoke of his achievements. His wife found records of the children he saved while they were still in storage at their home. Most of the children eventually grew up and had families of their own.
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale is best known for tending to British soldiers as they were wounded in the Crimean War. During that conflict, she insisted on and helped to create much cleaner, more organized conditions in the hospitals.
However, she made her biggest impact long after that war had ended. She continued to use statistics and collected evidence to push for healthier military hospitals and better public health practices. She helped to develop professionalized modern nursing.
Irena Sendler
Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who joined a secretive network to smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. They were smuggled out through underground tunnels, via sewer systems, and other routes before being placed with Polish families to live as Christians or in orphanages or religious facilities.
Sendler also preserved information about their true identities, hoping they could be reunited with their families after the war. She was later arrested and tortured by the Gestapo but managed to survive and resume underground activities.
Abdul Sattar Edhi
Abdul Sattar Edhi had the opportunity to live comfortably after his organization became well-known. Instead, he became famous for living an incredibly humble lifestyle. Starting from humble philanthropic beginnings in Pakistan, Edhi and his wife Bilquis expanded the Edhi Foundation into a massive fleet of ambulances, homeless shelters, orphanages, and hospitals.
Its services were offered to everyone, regardless of faith, caste, or creed. Edhi came to specialize in assisting those who had been written off by society: homeless people, abandoned children, the disabled, and the poor. By his death in 2016, his name was nearly synonymous with humanitarian aid within Pakistan.
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa became one of the most recognizable figures associated with charity. She started the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata in 1950, a religious order dedicated to serving those who were poor, sick, dying, or cast aside by society.
She expanded her mission to other countries in the coming decades and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. She continued to work until shortly before she died in 1997. While her approach and beliefs have attracted controversy, few figures in history are more synonymous with helping the most helpless.
Chiune Sugihara
In the spring of 1940, thousands of Jewish refugees were trying to flee Lithuania before it too was engulfed in war. Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese vice consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, began issuing transit visas allowing refugees to pass through Japanese territory.
He continued issuing them after being ordered to stop, often spending hours writing as many visas as he could. Thousands of refugees would flee with documents Sugihara had provided. However, Sugihara’s diplomatic career suffered afterward.
Henri Dunant
Swiss businessman Henri Dunant was traveling to northern Italy for a business meeting when he arrived at the scene of the Battle of Solferino shortly after its conclusion. There were thousands of wounded and dying men and only a handful of doctors.
Dunant was overcome with compassion at the horrific suffering and assisted the locals in gathering food, water, and medical attention for the wounded men. The men were cared for regardless of which side of the conflict they fought on.
Dunant published his experiences and proposed that international volunteer organizations be established to provide assistance to those wounded in war. These organizations became the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Nise da Silveira
Psychiatrist Nise da Silveira began her career at a time when brutally harsh psychiatric interventions were still commonplace. She opposed the use of lobotomy and other treatments that she felt were cruel. Silveira pioneered art and occupational therapy techniques that let psychiatric patients express themselves through painting, sculpting, and other activities.
She placed great importance on emotion and personal relationships with her patients. Thousands of works of art created in these programs were saved, becoming a unique collection. Her work made her a pioneer of more compassionate psychiatric treatment in Brazil.
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak was a well-known pediatrician, writer, and educator before the Holocaust. He directed a Warsaw orphanage based on radically child-centered principles. The Nazis forced Korczak and his orphanage into the Warsaw Ghetto as conditions worsened for the Jewish community.
On August 19, 1942, the children of Korczak’s orphanage were ordered to board transports for Treblinka extermination camp. He had opportunities to be released, but he refused to leave without the children. Korczak stayed with them until deportation, and died with them.
Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler wasn’t necessarily a man we can imagine spending his whole life doing good. He was a businessman, an opportunist, and a member of the Nazi Party who personally profited from the war, at least early on. However, as he watched Jews being persecuted and killed, he began spending his time, resources, and wealth fighting back.
Schindler went to great lengths using his factory, connections, bribes, and personal wealth to prevent his Jewish workers from being deported to death camps. By war’s end, approximately 1,200 Jews were alive because of Schindler.
Gladys Aylward
In the 1930s, Gladys Aylward traveled from Britain to China without support or funds normally required of Western missionaries. She made her way to rural China north of Beijing and became involved in missionary activities and orphan care.
During the Japanese invasion of northern China, she assumed responsibility for bringing an orphanage of over a hundred children to safety through enemy lines. They traveled through mountains and across rivers, navigating perilous conditions to finally reach safety. She went on to care for many more children and founded an orphanage in Taiwan.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. rose to prominence as a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement when racial segregation and discrimination were laws of customary practice in daily life. King preached nonviolent resistance, despite arrests, threats, bombings, and violent hatred.
King raised awareness that generated support for civil rights legislation, resulting in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. At age 35, he was the youngest person up to that time to win the Nobel Peace Prize. King was assassinated at the age of 39 in 1968.
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish diplomat who went to Budapest in 1944 as Hungary’s Jews were being shipped to their deaths. He gave out Swedish protective passports and set up buildings identified as Swedish safe houses. Wallenberg personally intervened to protect Jews as they were being deported. Armed only with diplomatic privilege, bravado, and pure nerve, Wallenberg pulled Jews from trains and streets, asserting that they were his Swedish-protected citizens.
Because of Wallenberg and others like him who served as diplomats or worked tirelessly to rescue Jews, thousands lived. Sadly, Wallenberg himself was captured by the Russians when they entered Budapest and was never heard from again.
George Müller
Poor and orphaned children living in 19th-century Britain had few options. They might go hungry or homeless, or they could end up in workhouses known for poor conditions. George Müller created orphan homes in Bristol that came to house thousands of children. They were given food, clothes, and education at a time when those were by no means assured for poor children.
Müller gained fame for accepting donations voluntarily and not charging families to stay or bothering people regularly for funds. His work grew to great size over the years and lasted well beyond his death.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi became world-famous by demonstrating that political resistance could be successful without violence. Leading a nonviolent resistance to British rule in India through civil disobedience, boycotts, and nonviolent protest, he endured repeated imprisonments. His teachings inspired later civil rights leaders around the globe, especially Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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