The Righteous
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- £7.99
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
'He who saves one life, it is as if he saved an entire world'
The Holocaust will be forever numbered amongst the darkest of days in human civilisation. Yet even in that darkness, there were sparks of light. Many will recognise the names of Oskar Schindler, Raoul Wallenberg and Miep Gies. But there were thousands of others throughout Europe who risked their own lives to save Jews from the Nazis and their horrific campaign of obliteration that was the Holocaust.
By the beginning of 2002, more than 19,000 non-Jews had been recognized as Righteous (Among the Nations) by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Some were officials, some were clergy; others were citizens of countries who united in their efforts to protect Jews. Many were merely individuals who had the courage to stand up against a growing tide of collaboration and simply say: 'We did what we had to do'.
Martin Gilbert, the foremost British historian of the Holocaust, here presents the evidence collected over many years. Cumulatively, these accounts, from every occupied country in Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, and from inside the Third Reich itself, form an inspiring tribute to those heroic individuals who, without thought to the risk to their own lives, dared to challenge barbarism, and hold out the hand of rescue to the Jews of Europe.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Books have been written about individuals who risked their own safety to aid Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. Yet this comprehensive examination by noted historian Gilbert (The First World War, etc.), recounted largely through first-person accounts by the Jews they rescued, is an important contribution. These thumbnail sketches of rescuers, their methods and, in some cases, the horrors they endured as a result of their courageous choices haven't previously been gathered in one volume. The result of 25 years of research sparked by witnessing Oskar Schindler's 1974 funeral procession in Jerusalem, Gilbert's country-by-country examination reveals as much about quiet dissent in Nazi-occupied Europe as it does about the human spirit. "For anyone who is honoured today for saving Jewish lives, there were ten or more who did the same," says one rescuer. In Vilna, a German officer, Maj. Karl Plagge, protected Jews from 1939 until 1944, by employing them in his Motor Vehicle Repair Park. In Germany, a young slave laborer, her feet frozen from working outdoors in the snow, was given a pair of shoes by an elderly couple in a remote wooded area; she never learned their names. The number of accounts is overwhelming, and fitting them all in one volume requires that each, to a degree, be given short shrift. But the very fact that there were so many tales of courage is reason to take heed of this heartening aspect of one of history's darkest moments. 32 pages of b&w photos, 20 maps.