Still, despite the enormous risks and high emotional costs, the five individuals and couples whose stories drive the narrative found ways to save the targeted refugees from persecution. These refugees were mostly Jews, but some were non-Jewish intellectuals, leftists, and other opponents of the Third Reich.
All deployed by US organizations, the aid workers struggled with defining how they wanted to work, and whom they would strive to rescue. Were they out to help political, intellectual, and artistic leaders, or did they want to offer humanitarian aid evenly, without regard to the status of the people being targeted? Were they willing to engage in illegal transactions? What was the level of danger they were willing to face?
Three American groups sent aid workers overseas to provide the refugees with relief. They were the Quakers, who went to Europe under the auspices of the American Friends Service; those who got involved through the Unitarian Service Committee; and Jewish workers recruited through the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, commonly known as the Joint. Their gripping stories are revealed through research into their letters, diaries, and government documents, which offer a great deal of detail and many fresh insights.
Dwork is a renowned historian and a prolific chronicler and interpreter of the Holocaust, and this book demonstrates why her reputation is so stellar. In this book, she homes in on two areas that have been understudied, and sometimes entirely overlooked, in other volumes about the topic: luck and drive. Dwork contests that understanding how these two factors operated during the war can help us create better interventions in today’s world.
She also argues that the relief workers had a variety of motivations: some were looking for adventure, while others had personal connections to people in trouble and wanted to find them and offer help. Others still were emotionally involved in the overall rescue effort and the war itself. All the aid workers were effective in their own way and for their individual reasons, though certain rivalries did develop between the Unitarians and the Quakers, in particular. The explanation of their differing points of view adds a significant level of interest to the story. We are driven to evaluate whether the humanitarian mission was more valuable than the political one, or vice versa.
In either case, 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.
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