Founded in 1986 by Dr. Fogelman and Rabbi Harold Schulweis, the Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers, (an Anti-Defamation League project), whose mission is to publicly acknowledge and thank Non-Jews who helped and/or saved Jews during the Holocaust despite enormous risk to themselves and their families. The first step was to find these heroes. Utilizing resources from Yad Vashem and other organizations, Dr. Fogelman and volunteers searched databases for leads, and researched archival documentation, and spent 10 years interviewing survivors, rescuers and their children around the world. Conscience and Courage is based on a combination of the analysis of those interviews, and Fogelman’s observations and thoughts.

Fogelman devised five categories of reasons why rescuers did what they did: MORAL (feelings of conscience), JUDEOPHILE (knowing and liking specific Jews, or feeling a connection to Jews), NETWORK (anti-Nazi sentiment motivates them to help others opposed or victimized by Nazis), CONCERNED PROFESSIONALISM (already working in the “helping” field as doctors, nurses, social workers and others), and CHILDREN (mostly children of adult rescuers). Many rescuers could be placed in overlapping categories, for example, diplomats and businessmen who saved hundreds of Jews.

The book is filled with stunning examples of long- and short-term rescues throughout Europe whether by one Non-Jew, a family, a town, or a network of resistance fighters. We learn of brave rescuers who gave their hearts and souls; their homes, food, money, health and lives to help protect and save Jews. The challenges were overwhelming: death if caught by the Nazis, little available space, food, supplies, money, the daily stress of hiding Jews from nosy neighbors, other family members, answering probing questions from neighbors or Nazis, acting normal under abnormal circumstances, thinking on their feet during searches, dealing with illness and disease with limited or no medical resources, keeping the peace among the terrified Jews, etc.

Fogelman faced challenges in finding and interviewing many rescuers for a number of reasons:
• Rescuers didn’t consider what they had done heroic or special.
• Some rescuers needed to lie to family members during the war, and could not now come forward and admit their roles.
• Anti-Semitism didn’t just stop when the war ended. Many rescuers continued to keep their life-saving actions secret and asked those they saved to refrain from telling anyone. (Rescuers that were found out were often threatened and beaten by their neighbors.)
• Other rescuers didn’t know the fates of the Jews they had protected; if they had they survived or not.
• Young children who had been saved may not have known the identity of their rescuers.

Conscience and Courage is informative and very readable. Fogelman provides much detail about the country, region, attitudes, psychology and emotions of each rescue and rescuer. This enables the reader to understand, and care about these exceptional, strong, gracious saviors, and to recognize the gratitude due them. ( )

Rescuers of Jews in Europe; who, why and post-War lives

Some sheltered one Jew for a night; others hid several Jews for years. Some performed a single spontaneous act of heroism, like the baker who saved the author's father in Poland in 1942; others were part of an anonymous network. These brave people, along with the well-known rescuers Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, had this in common: they were gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazi regime. In her deeply affecting book, Fogelman recounts the stories of these Europeans --housewives, businessmen, telephone operators, farmers, diplomats, nurses--and tells how the state of Israel has honored them with the title "Righteous Among the Nations." The author, a New York City social psychologist who directs the Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers, ponders deep questions: Why did these particular individuals become rescuers? Can moral integrity be taught and then applied? Is there such a thing as altruism? She explains that one of her reasons for writing the book was "to give altruism back its good name." Her study of extraordinary instances of moral courage will appeal to a broad audience. Fogelman wrote and co-produced the PBS series Breaking the Silence: The Generations After the Holocaust.

This is not just another Holocaust book. Instead of presenting a detailed factual account of what happened during the war, Fogelman explores the altruistic personalities of individuals who risked their lives and those of their families to help people considered to be enemies of the State. The stories of Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg are told along with those of lesser-known individuals such as Alexander Roslan and Louisa Steenstra, who went to extraordinary means to help Jews. The book is divided into three parts-"The Rescuers," "The Motivation," and "Postwar." Each section, complete with personal accounts, forms a mosaic of courage and conviction on the part of both the rescuers and the rescued.
Roberta Lisker, W.T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA

Conscience and Courage is about the stories of those who risked their lives, and often those of their families, to rescue and hide Jews during the war, sometimes for months and even years. The book is also explores the psychology of the rescuers: why did they act when so many did not? What sort of family upbringing did they have? What motivated them? How did they manage through the war and afterwards?

With a few exceptions, these were not exceptional individuals; they were quite ordinary people thrown into extraordinary circumstances, but who had a foundation of moral values that led them to act:

"These men, women and children who risked their lives to save others were flesh-and-blood human beings with strengths and faults. Yet they saw people who were different from them and responded, not to these differences, but to their similarities. While most people saw Jews as pariahs, rescuers saw them as human beings. This humanitarian response sprang from a core of firmly held inner values. These values, which included an acceptance of people who were different, were unwavering and immutable. And central to these beliefs was the conviction that what an individual did, or failed to do, mattered. They recognized that for many Jews the choice made by a bystander could mean life or death."

Fogelman identifies five categories of motivation that inspired helping others: morality which could be ideological, religious, emotional; Judeophiles who had special feelings or love for individual Jews or Jews as a people; concerned professionals such as doctors; having a network of rescuers working together against the policies and actions of the Third Reich; and children who helped to rescue Jews at the behest of their families.

Fogelman notes that regardless of the motivation, so much of how rescuers reacted depended on "singular combinations of circumstances, personalities, feelings, and personal history, crystallized into a single moment". Many rescuers did not set out with that intention; they simply reacted to a situation, and once engaged, they often went deeper, becoming more active. One act led to another until they were well and truly past any point that they could have envisaged at the beginning. Some took a thoroughly pragmatic view; as one rescuer said, the Germans would shoot you for hiding one Jew just as much as they would for hiding ten, so why not take on more?

Interestingly, the research that Fogelman cites, or the results that came out of her own work, echo many of the points made by Todorov (Facing the Extreme). For instance, in a distinction made between morality based on an impartial idea of justice, and another based on compassion and care. The latter was the basic motivation for many rescuers.

Fogelman describes well the huge emotional drain that resulted from rescuing activity: the constant fear of discovery and its consequences for one's own family; the psychological stress of living with strangers whom one might not even particularly like; the demands sometimes imposed by those being hidden; the fact that one had to isolate oneself from friends and neighbours while maintaining a facade and without arousing suspicions (this was particularly difficult on children and adolescents, many of whom felt afterwards that they had simply missed a large chunk of their youth); and the danger of re-integrating into society afterwards. In some places, being known as a rescuer of Jews led to attacks and even death. But even without that extreme, rescuers were often seen as mute critics of what others had done, or not done; many rescuers found they could not re-integrate into their old worlds and they emigrated.

In many ways, the question comes back to the fundamental one that makes many people uneasy: what would I have done? Would I have had the conscience and courage to do what the rescuers did?

(Jan//06)

NO OF PAGES: 393 SUB CAT I: Holocaust SUB CAT II: SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Retells stories of rescuers of Jews and the inner turmoil and psychological battles they faced.NOTES: SUBTITLE: Rescuers pf Jews During the Holocaust