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To Save a World: Profiles in Holocaust Rescue, Volume 1
Volume 1 has pieces on the following Ber WeissmandelAvraham KalmanowitzElimelech TressGeorge MantelloRecha SternbuchRenee Reichmann
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 19, 2019
This book is divided against itself.
On the one hand, it reveals stories unknown, but well deserved of having the public better informed about them.
On the same hand, it highlights uncommon, inspiring, daring heroism and evokes the frustration of realizing that good ol' fashioned money - albeit gobs of it - sometimes stood in the way of life and death for masses of people.
Essentially, the Nazis were bribable, but there was little communal courage to do that, which result in exacerbating the horrors of genocide.
On the other hand, the reporting is questionable and apocryphal, with debunked claims about certain facts, and silly narratives, many of them. Three particular ones that stand out are 1) the timeline of the world's knowing about the inner mechanisms of Auschwitz. History disagrees with what is revealed here. 2) Rabbi Aron Kotler apparently didn't have to to travel with any documents around the world. Staring down Nazi guards, on multiple occasions, was enough to get him to cross borders. Right. God does not work miracles that brazenly. 3) One of the heros faints every time he hears any kind of news, multiple settings. Really? I know no such human with such a constitution. It's an unnecesary device, better left for Victorian novels. This silly business should have been left out, and the book would have shined much better.
On the one hand, it reveals stories unknown, but well deserved of having the public better informed about them.
On the same hand, it highlights uncommon, inspiring, daring heroism and evokes the frustration of realizing that good ol' fashioned money - albeit gobs of it - sometimes stood in the way of life and death for masses of people.
Essentially, the Nazis were bribable, but there was little communal courage to do that, which result in exacerbating the horrors of genocide.
On the other hand, the reporting is questionable and apocryphal, with debunked claims about certain facts, and silly narratives, many of them. Three particular ones that stand out are 1) the timeline of the world's knowing about the inner mechanisms of Auschwitz. History disagrees with what is revealed here. 2) Rabbi Aron Kotler apparently didn't have to to travel with any documents around the world. Staring down Nazi guards, on multiple occasions, was enough to get him to cross borders. Right. God does not work miracles that brazenly. 3) One of the heros faints every time he hears any kind of news, multiple settings. Really? I know no such human with such a constitution. It's an unnecesary device, better left for Victorian novels. This silly business should have been left out, and the book would have shined much better.
December 26, 2013
This is a book about religious Jews who worked to save Jews during the holocaust. A seriously neglected area for some reason, and one of the authors has a bit of an axe to grind about this. A good book that could have used some really serious editing. The stories are interesting, and some of them are told well enough to be sitting-on-the-edge-of-the-seat suspenseful, but some, well, fail. I'm glad to have read it, glad to have learned about some more heroes. Never can get enough of real-life heroes. And someone needs to get these people an editor.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews