... 2007 (at sundown today), begins the 1st day of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights.... 1942 (65 years ago today), in Warsaw, Poland, was founded a clandestine organization, named Zegota, which provided aid to Jews persecuted under Nazi occupation. Coordinating efforts that had transpired piecemeal before this time, the organization was the brainchild of 2 women, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka (left) and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz, of whom it's written:
Kossak was a well-known, conservative Catholic writer, a member of the Catholic lay organization, the Front for Reborn Poland, and intensely involved on a personal level in assisting Jews. Krahelska-Filipowicz, who also personally sheltered Jews, was a Catholic Socialist activist of long standing....
... 1958, a portion of French West Africa that had been under colonial rule since 1872 became the "the République du Dahomey, self-governing within the French community." A year and a half later the key-shaped territory, situated on the Atlantic Coast between Togo and Nigeria, would become an independent state, the Republic of Benin.
... 1936, U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Cal.) was born in Brownsville, Texas.
