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Subject
- Sharp Cogan, Martha
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
- Sharp, Waitstill
- Humanitarian aid workers
- Humanitarian assistance, American
- World War, 1939-1945--Evacuation of civilians
- World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Rescue
- World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Female
- World War, 1939-1945--Women
- World War, 1939-1945--Women--United States
Genres
Availability
| Availability Label | Location | Shelfmark | Availability | Reservations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Pittsburgh Branch | Non 940.5318350973 Dwo | On loan until: 03/Jun/25 | 0 |
Comments and Reviews
More Reviews
Library Journal Review
Award-winning Dwork (director of CUNY Ctr. for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity; Holocaust: A History) focuses on the lives of American citizens who travelled all over the world to assist victims of Nazi Germany. This book centers on five committed individuals and couples who risked their own lives to help save others from an unimaginable fate. Spanning the globe, with accounts from Prague, Vilna, Shanghai, Marseille, and Lisbon, these are gripping narratives of relief workers representing Quakerism, Unitarianism, and Judaism, who navigated intricacies, changing policies, and danger to rescue Jewish people from the grip of the Nazis. The stories reflect how luck, immediate decisions, and incredible timing contributed to saving as many people as they did. For example, Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat to Lithuania, against orders, issued transit visas to Japan and thus saved the lives of thousands. VERDICT A beautifully written and gripping narrative with a focus on detail and insight into the people involved.—Jacqueline Parascandola
Publishers Weekly Review
Historian Dwork (Flight from the Reich) offers a fine-grained chronicle of American relief agencies that assisted refugees in Europe ahead of WWII. Delving into relief workers’ diaries and letters, Dwork showcases the “messiness” of the aid operations—both the “heated personal antipathies and the constant quarreling” that Dwork discovers were endemic to these organizations, and the fact that relief workers succeeded mainly through subterfuge and lawbreaking. Among those she profiles are Martha and Waitstill Sharp, a couple assigned by the Unitarian Service Committee to Prague who engaged in illegal currency exchanges to underwrite the costs of clandestinely moving undocumented refugees, and Laura Margolis, a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Shanghai who “bent rules and regulations” to obtain supplies for newly arrived Jewish refugees. Dwork’s narrative focuses on how relief workers had to make complex ethical decisions without any guidance other than their own strong inner moral compasses, which may explain why “fractious personalities” were drawn to this work (“Perhaps placid people stayed home,” Dwork speculates). These decisions could sometimes hinge on bias, in Dwork’s assessment; for example, Marjorie McClelland, a Marseille-based social worker who selected refugee children for transport abroad, chose children based on how sympathetic (clean, religiously observant, hardworking) she found their mother. The result is a gripping study of individuals operating in terrible extremis. (Jan.)
Summary & Details
Summary, Notes, and Other Information
Author Notes
Debórah Dwork is director of the Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity at the Graduate Center--CUNY. Author (with Robert Jan van Pelt) of Flight from the Reich, Holocaust, and Auschwitz, among other works, she lives in New York.
Summary
Long before their country officially joined the war, American aid workers were active in rescue efforts across Europe. Two such Americans were Martha and Waitstill Sharp, who were originally sent to Prague as part of a relief effort but turned immediately to helping Jews and dissidents after the 1939 invasion by Germany.
They were not the only ones. Renowned historian Debórah Dwork follows the story of rescue workers in five major cities as the refugee crisis expanded to Vilna, Shanghai, Marseille, and Lisbon. Followed by Nazi agents, spiriting people across borders, they learned secrecy.
Others negotiated with government representatives, like Laura Margolis, who worked with the Japanese, to get enough food and warm shelter for the refugees in Shanghai. Yet, the women also often faced lack of support from their agencies; if part of a couple, they fought to get paid even at a low salary despite working as long and hard as their husbands.
Moving and revelatory, Saints and Liars illuminates the unpredictable circumstances and often fast-changing historical events with which these aid workers contended, while revealing the moral questions they encountered and the devastating decisions they had to make.
Drawing on a multitude of archival documents, from letters to diaries and memos, Dwork offers us a rare glimpse into the lives of individuals who--at times with their organizations' backing, but sometimes against their directives--sought to help people find safe haven from persecution.
Full Record Details Table
| Title Statement | Saints and liars: the story of Americans who saved refugees from the Nazis / Debórah Dwork. |
|---|---|
| Alternative Title(s) | Story of Americans who saved refugees from the Nazis |
| Author | Dwork, Deborah |
| Publication | New York: W. W. Norton & Company,[2025]©2025 |
| Edition | First edition. |
| Extent of Item | xiv, 231 pages |
| ISBN | 9781324020349 (hardcover) |
| Other Number | pr07824548 |
| Bibliography | Includes bibliographical references (pages 187-216) and index. |
| Summary | "Long before their country officially joined the war, American aid workers were active in rescue efforts across Europe. Two such Americans were Martha and Waitstill Sharp, who were originally sent to Prague as part of a relief effort but turned immediately to helping Jews and dissidents after the 1939 invasion by Germany. They were not the only ones. Renowned historian Deborah Dwork follows the story of rescue workers in five major cities as the refugee crisis expanded to Vilna, Shanghai, Marseille, and Lisbon. Followed by Nazi agents, spiriting people across borders, they learned secrecy. Others negotiated with government representatives, like Laura Margolis, who worked with the Japanese, to get enough food and warm shelter for the refugees in Shanghai. Yet, the women also often faced lack of support from their agencies; if part of a couple, they fought to get paid even at a low salary despite working as long and hard as their husbands. Moving and revelatory, Saints and Liars illuminates the unpredictable circumstances and often fast-changing historical events with which these aid workers contended, while revealing the moral questions they encountered and the devastating decisions they had to make. Drawing on a multitude of archival documents, from letters to diaries and memos, Dwork offers us a rare glimpse into the lives of individuals who -- at times with their organizations' backing, but sometimes against their directives -- sought to help people find safe haven from persecution"-- |
| Subjects & Genres | |
| By Topic | Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) |
| Humanitarian aid workers | |
| Humanitarian assistance, American | |
| World War, 1939-1945--Evacuation of civilians | |
| World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Rescue | |
| World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Female | |
| World War, 1939-1945--Women | |
| World War, 1939-1945--Women--United States | |
| By Name | Sharp Cogan, Martha,1905-1999 |
| Sharp, Waitstill,1902-1984 | |
| By Genre | Biographies |
| Personal narratives | |
