Saints and Liars
The Story of Americans Who Saved Refugees from the Nazis
18 February 2025
Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, Singapore and Malaysia, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Description
A gripping history that plumbs the extraordinary stories of American relief and rescue workers during World War II.
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.
Reviews
"[Saints and Liars] chronicles the intertwined stories of the refugees Hitler targeted and the unsung cadre of American relief workers who stood in harm’s way to help them… Dwork presents compelling snapshots of the war’s devastation as it spread beyond Europe to engulf Asia and America." — Diane Cole, Wall Street Journal
"[T]his book demonstrates why [Debórah Dwork's] reputation is so stellar…. Saints and Liars will appeal to readers who believe in the importance of understanding the Holocaust and other genocidal crimes, and to those who appreciate the value of humanitarian aid." — Linda F. Burghardt, Jewish Book Council
"[I]nspiring, wide-ranging, and gripping… These are amazing stories of lives saved, told expertly by the talented Holocaust author Debórah Dwork." — Charles S. Weinblatt, New York Journal of Books
"Excellent… Saints and Liars is both an evocative historical study and a pressing moral imperative urging us to act, even amid great uncertainty." — Trevor Brandt, Friends Journal
"A contribution to the literature of humanitarian aid as well as the Holocaust." — Kirkus Reviews
"A gripping study of individuals operating in terrible extremis." — Publishers Weekly
"In this remarkable book Debórah Dwork confirms her place as the most profound historian of the Holocaust at work today. Brilliantly weaving together original analysis and piercing insight, she offers a whole new way of conceptualizing the tragedy of the Shoah. It is a truly transformative addition to the existing body of scholarship." — Zoe Waxman, Professor of Holocaust History, University of Oxford, and author of Women in the Holocaust: A Feminist History
"When genocidal dictators blow up the world, extraordinary people rise to the occasion. Debórah Dwork’s powerful Saints and Liars depicts the lives of courageous Americans, of various religious denominations, who worked against odds and at great risk rescuing Jewish refugees from the Nazis. Dwork, noted for her groundbreaking work on children, gender, war, and the Holocaust, shows us the human flaws and conflicts, administrate complexities, and sexism these rescuers faced, endured, and triumphed over. An important and timely book." — Peter Balakian, author of The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response
"For anyone interested in the plight of refugees and the intensely committed people who provided relief and rescue in war-torn Europe, Debórah Dwork’s deeply researched and riveting account is the gold standard. A must-read!" — Marion Kaplan, author of Hitler's Jewish Refugees: Hope and Anxiety in Portugal
"Prague, Vilna, Shanghai, Marseille, and Lisbon are the backdrop for this brilliantly conceived history of American relief and rescue efforts during World War II. Debórah Dwork’s discerning eye has focused on five examples of individuals and couples whose courage and determination saved lives. In doing this, she not only tells an important story of human agency in the context of world events, but also provides a revealing and welcome glimpse at the quotidian and often overlooked motives, irrational impulses, and just plain luck that propel history just as they do our everyday lives." — David Marwell, author of Mengele: Unmasking the Angel of Death
"In Saints and Liars Debórah Dwork tells a gripping story of individual American activists—Unitarians, Quakers, Jews—navigating the dark corners of wartime Prague, Vilna, Shanghai, Marseille, and Lisbon in an effort to save vulnerable people from the Nazis. Her book reads like a novel by Alan Furst or Joseph Kanon, while also delivering a powerful and moving portrait of what brave (though complicated) people could do in response to Nazi persecution. This is a brilliant work of historical reconstruction which, sadly, is also highly timely." — Benjamin Carter Hett, author of The Death of Democracy
"In Saints and Liars Debórah Dwork deftly examines five examples of rescue efforts in five cities—Vilna, Prague, Marseille, Lisbon, and Shanghai—between 1939-1943. With exhaustive research, Debórah Dwork peels back layers of complexity, each microhistory highlighting the importance of luck, timing, resourcefulness and connections. These stories seen simply from today’s perspective could be flattened by a lesser writer as purely heroic. But Debórah Dwork’s recounting shows that they were messy, plagued by egos, ambitions, miscommunications, sexism, real dangers, and the chaos of the times with shifting political and military realities. These rescuers were saints, but to accomplish what they did, they were also liars; they were driven and they were flawed. Debórah Dwork illuminates tiny bright moments of astonishing bravery, such as Japan’s consul, Chiune Sugihara, who despite explicitly being told not to grant transit visas to Jews, issued thousands. Startlingly relevant in today’s world-wide refugee crisis, Saints and Liars serves as a primer to all of us trying to understand the complex, messy and urgent work of rescue." — Gwen Strauss, author of The Nine
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