In this remarkable, historically significant book, Mordecai Paldiel recounts in vivid detail the many ways in which, at great risk to their own lives, Jews rescued other Jews during the Holocaust. In so doing he puts to rest the widely held belief that all Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe wore blinders and allowed themselves to be led like “lambs to the slaughter.” Paldiel documents how brave Jewish men and women saved thousands of their fellow Jews through efforts unprecedented in Jewish history.
Encyclopedic in scope and organized by country, Saving One’s Own tells the stories of hundreds of Jewish activists who created rescue networks, escape routes, safe havens, and partisan fighting groups to save beleaguered Jewish men, women, and children from the Nazis. The rescuers’ dramatic stories are often shared in their own words, and Paldiel provides extensive historical background and documentation.
The untold story of these Jewish heroes, who displayed inventiveness and courage in outwitting the enemy—and in saving literally thousands of Jews—is finally revealed.
Mordecai Paldiel is a professor of history at Yeshiva University–Stern College and Touro College and is a consultant to the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. He is the former longtime director of the Righteous among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem and was himself rescued from the Holocaust by a “Righteous Gentile.” Paldiel is the author of eight books, including Sheltering the Jews: Stories of Holocaust Rescuers and Saving the Jews: Amazing Stories of Men and Women Who Defied the “Final Solution.”
