Books:


Flender, Harold. Rescue in Denmark. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1963.

Rescue in Denmark starts out by laying the groundwork for Denmark's approach to the anti-Semitic acts the Nazi's wanted to inflict upon the Danish Jews. In the last chapter "Why the Danes?" the author gives the reader a better understanding of what was behind a country's moral convictions. Flenders explicitly outlines the reasons, beginning with the country's law from the 1800's against racial and religious discrimination, thus showing that the Danes had a humanitarian outlook on life for centuries.


Fogelman, Eva. Conscience and Courage. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

In Conscience and Courage, Fogelman categorizes rescuers into different classes of altruism based on each rescuer's account of what they did. Fogelman deftly discusses the forms of altruism to enlighten the reader as to "why" someone would help the Jews escape Nazi oppression. Fogelman approaches the topic from a psychological angle. Fogelman interviewed three hundred rescuers. From those interviews she determined what motivates a person to become a rescuer. Specifically, Fogelman believes becoming a rescuer took more than simply wanting to achieve goodness. As she puts it, it also took "moral courage during an immoral time."


Huneke, Douglas K. The Moses of Rovno. New York: Dodd Mead and Co., 1984.

Huneke's book spotlights Fritz Graebe, an otherwise ordinary Christian German who rescued many Jews. The book presents the complete story of Graebe's righteous acts. The epilogue describes the motivations or reasons Braebe became a rescuer. Huneke gives evidence for Graebe's high moral and religious convictions and how they developed and shaped him to become a rescuer. The author also notes that Graebe, as well as other rescuers, possess most of the seven characteristics outlined in the epilogue. One of the seven characteristics he mentioned in the epilogue was the ability to place oneself figuratively in the victim's shoes.


Land-Weber, Ellen. To Save a Life. Urbana, Chicago, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

To Save a Life contains a wealth of material about non-Jewish rescuers. The text offers clues and answers as to "why" the rescuers saved Jews. By including testimony of survivors, Land-Weber adds another dimension to the rescuer stories to create a deeper understanding. For example, the story of the Bochove family was also told by those survivors the family helped, Henny Juliard and Yettie Mendels. This way the reader gets a wider spectrum of the rescuer and the people with whom they interacted. Stories supplement the text with pictures and illustrations of hiding places. The reader will findTo Save a Life a valuable tool in researching the characteristics and motivations of a rescuer.


Levine, Hillel. In Search of Sugihara. New York: The Free Press 1996.

In the book In Search of Sugihara, Levine is in search of what makes Sugihara a rescuer. Levine carefully dissects Sugihara's testimony to discover the reasons why Sugihara outwardly defied the Japanese government to save thousands of Jews. Levine creates a detailed outline of Sugihara's life and the answer lies in Sugihara's background. As Levine goes through the history he carefully constructs Sugihara's character. A reader will be able to identify the characteristics of a rescuer and have a clearer understanding of what motivated Sugihara to spread his diplomatic arm around the Jews.


Paldiel, Mordecai. The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust.   New Jersey: KTAV Publishing House, 1993.

This book contains accounts of Jewish rescues by Christians from many different countries. In doing so it identifies many varied reasons the rescuers gave for performing their courageous acts. Among the reasons given are religious, performing one's duty, it was a natural thing, shame, and it was a conscientious act.


Silver, Eric. The Book of the Just. New York: Grove Press, 1992.

This book describes Jewish rescues by Christians and categorizes them by the motivating factors in the rescue. These factors include Christian charity, resistance against Nazi occupation, and friendship with Jews. Silver also chronicles righteous acts performed by the concetration camp prisoners themselves.


Tec, Nechama. When Light Pierced the Darkness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

The third part of When Light Pierced the Darkness explains the author's philosophy of why the rescuers in Poland performed their courageous deeds. Tec examines to what degree social class (by which she means occupation), politics, friendship, and religion have to do with the actions of the rescuers. Interestingly, she comes to the conclusion that rescuers did not belong to a certain class or have specific political leanings. Also, she claims only a small number of rescued Jews were saved by friends. Instead she suggests the pious people who saved the Jews were religious in an independent way. It was their moral convictions rather than religious beliefs that drove them to help the Jews. She concludes by stating the rescuers shared the following six traits: individuality, independence, commitment to stand up for the helpless and needy, seeing Jews in an unassuming way, the rescue was unplanned, and viewing the Jews as helpless beings that needed protection from others.