Martha Sharp - Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

Watching the events of early-World War II 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.