ART / HISTORY / HOLOCAUST STUDIES
RESCUERS
Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
Gay Block and Malka Druckerprologue by Cynthia Ozick
"In the Europe of the most savage decade of the century, not to be a bystander was the choice of
an infinitesimal few .... It is from these undeniably herioc and principled few that we can learn
the full resonance of civilization."
Who are the rescuers? They are the men and women who risked everything—their livlihoods, homes, lives, and families—to give life to Jews in danger, most of whom were complete strangers. Why did they risk everything to save Jews marked for death during the Holocaust?
Gay Block and Malka Drucker spent three years interviewing 105 rescuers from ten countries. In
their own words, forty-nine of these people tell the story of their lives before, during, and after
the war as they grapple with the question of why they acted with humanity in a time of barbarism.
Rescuers hid Jews in cellars and behind false walls, shared their meager food rations, disposed
of waste, smuggled people out of ghettos, and brought up Jewish children as their own.
January – December, 2001