Flight and Rescue [Paperback]

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Corporate Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2001

In an extraordinary new volume, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reveals details of the famous 'Sugihara rescue' during the summer of 1940, when foreign policy and human compassion converged for a fleeting moment. While the world's political landscape was in turmoil, foreign envoys of Japan and the Netherlands forged an unlikely alliance in Kaunas, Lithuania, that saved the lives of 2,100 Polish Jews. Survival depended on the actions of two diplomats who never met. Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk and Chiune Sugihara, Japan's acting consul to Lithuania, worked in concert to provide Jews with the travel papers needed to escape. Men, women, and children crossed Soviet Russia aboard the Trans-Siberian Railroad and then sailed in cargo boats to Kobe, Japan, and finally to China. Many of them survived the war years in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. Among the refugees were Menachem Begin, future prime minister of Israel, and Rabbi Eliezar Finkel and his students from Mir, Poland, the only Eastern European yeshiva to survive the Holocaust intact. Suddenly thrust into Asian society, treated alternately as tourists and displaced persons, the refugees adapted to Japanese and Chinese cultures while retaining a vibrant Jewish spiritual life. Through historic photographs, artifacts, documents, diaries, letters, and testimonies, this riveting volume unveils little-known facets of a remarkable humanitarian effort.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

During the summer of 1940, Chiune Sugihara, Japan's acting consul in Kaunas (now Kovno), Lithuania, with the help of Jan Zwartendijk, the Dutch acting consul there, saved 2,178 Polish Jews by providing them with foreign transit visas. Much has been written about Sugihara, but this book focuses on the refugees' journey from Poland to Lithuania, then across the Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian Railroad to the port of Vladivostok, by ship across the Sea of Japan to Tsuruga, and by train to Kobe. A majority of them survived World War II in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. With an introduction by Susan Bachrach, the narrative offers a profile of the refugees and details their journey and time spent in Shanghai, where they struggled to live in broken-down, cramped accommodations and with a scarcity of food. There, too, 300 students and rabbis of the Mir Yeshiva continued their rigorous studies. The book, with 335 photographs and illustrations, 150 in color, is a companion volume to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's exhibition of the same name. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

HIS --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 34 pages
• Publisher: Holocaust Pubns (March 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896047059
• ISBN-13: 978-0896047051
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,017,638 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent resource, superb condition, December 7, 2011

By 

Y. Cohn - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Flight and Rescue (Hardcover)

There are scores of accounts of this incredible saga. They often contradict each other ins many details. My father's name (mispelled) is in Sugihara's list, and my mother travelled on his visa.

When I reviewed the many accounts to prepare a presentation about my parents' escape, I concluded that, for the most part, this book by the US Holocaust Museum is the most reliable resource for much of the story. I do believe that at least two of the the refugees significantly overstated their own roles, and that credit for certain activities is given to the most vigorous self-promoters. I also believe that some accounts are riddled by what I believe to be settling of old scores.

All that being said, for the most part, this book is better than most. I also recommend the book "Refugee & Survivor, by Zorach Warhaftig. Warhaftig was intimately involved in much of this saga and his account is excellent. However, he was not involved in the actual departure and travels of the Mir Yeshiva and he is mistaken in the details of that part of the story. Alas, he also fails to give the names of other significant participants from the Mir Yeshiva, including that of my father, Rabbi Moses Jesajas Cohn (Kohn.)