Saints and Liars: The Story of Americans Who Saved Refugees from the Nazis

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.