To Save a Life: STORIES OF HOLOCAUST RESCUE [Hardcover]

Ellen Land-Weber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2000

The Holocaust takes on a riveting immediacy in these true stories of an everyday, understated heroism that saved thousands of Jews from annihilation at the hands of the Third Reich. Combining personal interviews with contemporary and vintage photographs, "To Save a Life" pairs the stories of a handful of rescuers with those of people they saved. Ellen Land-Weber creates a moving, multidimensional picture of the evasive strategies and heart-stopping close calls that filled the years of the Holocaust for both rescuers and rescued. In matter-of-fact tones, the rescuers describe how and why they put their lives on the line to protect Jews from the Nazis, committing daily acts of resistance that ranged from providing hiding places to procuring false passports and papers, from arranging for medical treatment to interceding with the Gestapo for Jews who had been arrested. The rescuees narrate their growing awareness of the tightening circle of Nazi terror, their experiences in hiding, often being shunted from one safehouse to another, and their hair's-breadth separation from friends and family who did not escape. These stories of courage and risk, set in Holland, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, represent a great many other stories of rescue that will never be documented. Rescuers came from every walk of life - teachers, students, shopkeepers, factory workers, housewives, farmers - and were quite unexceptional in most ways. However, by their heroic response to the extraordinary circumstances of Nazi control, these individuals helped reduce the devastation of the Holocaust, sometimes by a single person, sometimes more. "On a certain day, I vanished from the earth," one of the rescuees recalls in "To Save a Life". The human courage and determination that orchestrated the disappearance and consequent survival of these near victims of the Holocaust makes for gripping and inspiring reading.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A book that anyone interested in the history of World War II should know about. But it is more about the human capacity for selfless action and about memory than about history in any narrow sense. It should be read by a far wider audience, by anyone willing to entertain the possibility of hope." -- Alissa Leigh, Houston Chronicle "Extraordinarily moving. The spareness of the narratives makes the stories more believable." -- Multicultural Review ADVANCE PRAISE "With a photographer's eye for the telling detail, Ellen Land-Weber has gathered remarkably heartfelt and vivid accounts of human bravery and compassion. By recording how some of us behave in extremis, To Save a Life can be measured alongside the great documentary projects of Lewis Hine, Walker Evans and James Agee, and Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor." -- Andy Grundberg, author of Crisis of the Real "If we want to cultivate persons of a higher and better moral caliber, then the examples of persons in this book should serve as excellent role models. Hopefully, Ellen Land-Weber's book will serve this good purpose." -- Mordecai Paldiel, director, Department for the Righteous, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (August 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252025156
• ISBN-13: 978-0252025150
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,251,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving & uplifting, October 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: To Save a Life: STORIES OF HOLOCAUST RESCUE (Hardcover)

"To Save a Life" may move you to tears (it did me). You will read about the experiences of persecuted Jews and their rescuers during the Holocaust, as told in their own words. At the same time the stories in the book are also inspiring and even cheering -- it's wonderful to see how kind some people are in the most adverse situations. The author interviewed a select number of rescuers and some of the people they rescued, then edited their words into coherent stories in a way that lets the subjects' voices come through with simple clarity and grace. Additionally the book is illustrated with fascinating photographs, many from the war years, plus contemporary portraits taken by the author. This is a great book and a great read for all ages: history from the mouths of the people who lived it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching Stories, November 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: To Save a Life: STORIES OF HOLOCAUST RESCUE (Hardcover)

A wonderful collection of memories and stories by Holocaust survivors and about both the people who saved them and the (unfortunate) ones who didn't try. Reading these stories places one in a time completely foreign to the world around us today, but reconnects one to what it means to be human and to be humane. A very moving collection. Highly recommended.

0 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Problems with Tina Strobos story, June 25, 2006

By 

Jerry G. Meents "Maven" (Utah. USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: To Save a Life: STORIES OF HOLOCAUST RESCUE (Hardcover)

I have no problem with how many Jewish people she has helped or kept hidden in her home or grand Mothers home.

Here are the problems with Tina's story, Henry Polack, name is spelled wrong, it should be Henri Polak and the elaborate identity card was a picture ID with 2 prints of the right index finger

One finger print was put on a breakeble seal then glued on the back of paspoort picture for whom this ID was and one fingerprint on a other part of the ID, now if the picture was replaced with a other picture the finger print would not match.

Over the other finger prints a special glue was applied to make it almost impossible to remove.

Not as Tina states, I put there finger print(one only?)on the back of the photo.

Then Tina talks about listen to the BBC and as many 30-40 people came to listen most of them were Jewish.

Why would the Jewish people who were living in hiding would go out on the streets and walk, even in walking distance, one or five blocks? risk there lives to go listen to a radio broadcast.

Now there are listering to a illegal radio station and live in hiding, and with 30-40 people in a room?and nobody noticed all those people going in to one building.

Tina also talke's a bout the old Jewish quarter,we who lived there called a neighborhood,as one of the nices neighborhoods in Amsterdam, not at all poverty-stricken.

On a other page with a picture of the old Jewish quarter,she discrbe this same old Jewish quater completely the opposite, she says here that this it was one of the poorest disticts of Amsterdam, filled with alleys, and slums.

Sorry Tina,you can't have it both ways.

Now the worse parts, in 1941 the Germans closed off the Jewish quarter, true but only for a short time, and forced in to it all the Jews living in other parts of the city.

Not true, by that time my family and my fathers brother and his family plus a sister from my father with her family were living in the other parts of the city, and we or any other people in

our neighborhoods were forced to move to the old quarter.

They,the Germans,put up barbed wire all around but left the main thoughfares and Jew or non-Jews could in and out of this closed off area, why would the Germans close off the Jewish neighborhood but let anybody go in and out?

The curfew for the Jewish people started on 6-30-42 not in 1941.

No mention of the word ghetto.

After this the word ghetto shows up 7 times, there was no ghetto in Amsterdam during 1940-1945.

Then Tina discriped how her mother was leaving the ghetto and was asked to take a baby with her but Tina's mother can't, because she will be stopped at the gate, which gate? Tina stated that every body could in and out, because the main thoroughfares were open.

Tina's mother tell the parens of the baby if you know a way I can meet him outside, a place you can get him through the barbed wire, then I can help.

But lined up every ten feet were flares and lights, plus machine guns on the roofs , and every street corner. There was really no way she could do this.

As I said, the old Jewish neighborhood was closed of a very short time less than 3 months.

There never any flares, lights or machine guns on the roofs or on any street corners.

I have e-mails from the Jewish Historical Museum and from the Dutch War Documentation Office, NIOD, both in Amsterdam, and both deny that there was a ghetto in Amsterdam during 1940-1945 or any machine guns or light or flares during the time that there was barbed wire around the old Jewish neighbohood.

Plus there are more parts in this story that were diverent from the reality.

If anybody want copys of those e-mails, or have any questions contact me at [e-mail].