Before America joined World War II, American aid workers left the comforts and freedoms of their homes and moved directly in the path of the Nazis in order to provide relief and care, and ultimately rescue, of the Jews. Most aid workers were funded with very little money by their religious group, being sent into enemy land with literally a hope and a prayer, and no support or recognition by our government.
Martha and Waitstill Sharp were two of these aid workers. They helped both Jews and dissidents as Germany invaded all around them. They divided their work between relief and emigration assistance through official paperwork, some forged, relief money and goods, and even helping some refugees find jobs in America. Never once did they use their means of networks to escape back to safety. They stayed in Hitler’s way.
I have several favorite stories of the Sharps’ daring, but I can’t share them all here. You will have to read the book. I will share one. Martha, on her own, escorted 35 refugees to England to safety. Her group included orphaned children, political activists, and journalists who were quite literally in the hands of the Nazis. Her ability to fool the enemy included a green pen, quickly adding the journalists’ names to her forged manifest, and then convincing the Nazis that the journalists’ names were there all along — they just overlooked them. And what did she do once she got them to England? She turned right back around and returned to the chaos.
Both Martha and Waitstill Sharp received the “Righteous Among the Nations” award posthumously, an honor given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
I held my breath several times reading the accounts, and sometimes cheered out loud when everything worked out. Other incredibly heroic aid workers also have their stories told, including those in the Pacific.
“Saints and Liars” by Debórah Dwork is a thorough account of Americans who both rendered aid and concealed identities in order to transport hundreds of individuals to shelter during the Nazi reign. Your very soul will be stirred.
Here is an additional review by Linda F. Burghardt for the Jewish Book Council on January 6, 2025:
Three different groups of people, three sets of motivations, and three methods of operation, but one goal: to save as many people displaced by World War II as possible.
That is the premise of Saints and Liars, which tells the story of several American aid workers who performed heroic deeds to protect refugee communities in foreign countries and bring people to safety.
This slim yet emotional book focuses on such efforts in five cities: Marseille, Lisbon, Prague, Vilna, and Shanghai. Drawing on numerous archival sources, award-winning author Debórah Dwork lays out the moral questions the aid workers encountered, the changing policies they had to overcome, and the ever-present danger they faced.
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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