Recommended Reading

Saving One's Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust

Paldiel, Mordecai
Reviewed by Jewish Book Council

The 2017 National Jewish Book Award winners and finalists were recently announced. The last three months we recommended the winner in the field of Holocaust and two finalists. This month we recommend the third and lost finalist in the field of Holocaust, Saving One’s Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust by Mordecai Paldiel. Click here to read a review.

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.

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