“Saints and Liars: Americans Who Saved Jews During the Nazi Years” Book Talk

Long before their country joined the war, American aid workers were active in rescue efforts across Europe. In this presentation, renowned Holocaust scholar Debórah Dwork will focus on such Americans, many of whom were women.

Some, followed by Nazi agents, learned secrecy as they spirited people across borders. Others negotiated with government representatives. The new book Saints and Liars illuminates the unpredictable circumstances and often fast-changing historical events with which these rescuers 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, Prof. Dwork offers 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.

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.