When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland [Paperback]

Nechama Tec (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 1987 | ISBN-10: 0195051947 | ISBN-13: 978-0195051940

Everyone knows the name of Anne Frank but few people remember anything about the people who sheltered her. Who were the rescuers and what motivated them to risk their lives for persecuted Jews? Clearly such people deserve to be remembered and honored. And clearly an understanding of their motivations may help us cultivate such behavior in our own day.
Focusing on such "righteous Christians," Tec, herself a survivor helped by Poles, vividly recreates what it was like to pass and hide among Christians and what it was like for Poles to rescue Jews. Concentrating on Poland, the Nazi center for Jewish annihilation, Tec amassed a vast array of published accounts, unpublished testimonies, and interviews, yielding case histories of over 500 Polish helpers, preserving for posterity the heroism of such people, and filling a significant gap in our knowledge of the Holocaust.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Saved by Christian Poles herself from almost certain death, Tec closely and dispassionately examines the phenomenon of the "righteous Christians," those individuals who, for whatever reason, risked their own lives to save the lives of Jews. She focuses exclusively on Poland, a country totally dominated by the Nazis and simultaneously burdened with its own long history of anti-Semitism. Tec interviewed numerous Jewish survivors and Polish rescuers. By supplementing these data with other published and unpublished sources, she offers valuable new insights into why certain individuals rose to the heights of human altruism in a milieu marked by human cruelty and barbarism. Her sociological approach is useful and remarkably unobtrusive. Recommended. Mark R. Yerburgh, Trinity Coll. Lib., Burlington, Vt.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A fine study of Polish rescuers who saved Jews during World War II. Nechama Tec's personal experiences during the Holocaust add a special dimension to her systematic and well researched study. The book is thought-provoking and generates excellent class discussion."--Yaffa Eliach, Brooklyn College

"A valuable contribution to the literature on the Holocaust. It is a book enlightened by her own experiences and the discipline of a scholar attempting to understand how and why people reacted in a time when evil seemed dominant."--Menorah Review

"Tec is a scholar, a gifted writer and a woman who personally experienced much about what she writes. Her book sheds important new light on the complex and distressing question of the behavior of European Christians during the Holocaust."--Gerald Green, author of Holocaust

"When Light Pierced the Darkness deserves a wide readership. The many stories of sacrifice, narrow escapes, betrayal, and capture show just how special this [Polish Christian] religious belief was, and they make for interesting and instructive reading."--Christianity Today

"A thoroughly researched study that will greatly assist in the sorting out of the complex story of wartime Polish-Jewish relations....Should remain the definitive study on the subject for the foreseeable future. It gives the best insights into why Poland had at once the best and worst possible conditions for rescuing Jews from the Nazis."--Journal of Church and State

"An important addition to the books that explore this dark time."--Jewish Advocate

"Peril, sacrifice and heroism emerge in vivid testimony that instructs and inspires. Nechama Tec has recovered from obscurity and silence invaluable memories of the rescued and the rescuers."--David Altshuler, George Washington University

"Of the recent additions to the ever-growing body of Holocaust literature, this publication is among the best....A study rich in both poignant narrative and scholarly analysis....It helps fill a long-standing lacuna in Holocaust literature."--Emory Studies on the Holocaust

"[An] excellent book...Not only is Tec's book the first thorough treatment of the subject, but it is also charged with a poignancy that only a survivor can summon."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"A first-rate systematic examination, scrupulous and thoughtful, of what makes a hero."--The Cleveland Plain Dealer

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 22, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195051947
• ISBN-13: 978-0195051940
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #601,998 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly remarkable book, December 13, 2000

By 

Jana Nytch "Sandy Jana" (Sandy, Utah USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (Paperback)

If you want to discover the the true humanity that lies hidden through all classes of society then this book is the one to read. It views the holocaust from the noble within humanity and helps one to think about what their own responses would be in a similar circumstance. Besides this, the writer is very skilled and a pleasure to read.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspirational book fills a gap in Holocaust history, February 20, 2001

By 

K. Corn "reviewer" (midwest, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (Paperback)

Although there are other books that cover the subject of Christians who helped Jews during the Holocaust, this one filled some gaps that the others didn't - to my mind, anyway. The author, Nechama Tec, looks at people who helped for all the right reasons - and also those who helped in spite of their semitism. She tries to find the "why" behind all the altruism and also explores how class and politics affected the decision to help the Jews. I found the writing style to be a bit dry for my taste at times but I still couldn't stop reading this book. Recommended!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Polish Rescuers of Jews Examined in Great Detail, November 29, 2007

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (Paperback)

This study is very comprehensive, yet Tec acknowledges the possibility of a sampling bias (p. 235). Virtually all Polish Jews who survived the war had been helped by Poles (p. 72), most of whom had been strangers to them (p. 227, 233), and a significant fraction of whom held anti-Semitic beliefs (pp. 61-63; including the hard-core variety: Chapter 6).

Emmanuel Ringelblum had supposed that members of the Polish middle class (small businessmen), supposedly desiring Jews' deaths in order to avoid repaying money owed them, would be the least prone to save Jews. Tec refutes this canard (p. 119).

Tec devotes Chapter 5 to Poles who (usually driven by poverty, p. 93) aided Jews solely or primarily for financial gain, but lacks context. For centuries, the only relationship between Jews and Polish peasants had been a buyer-seller one. So why wouldn't some Polish peasants view Jews only in terms of money?

Unlike Jan T. Gross, who belittles the German-imposed death penalty for aiding Jews, "The survivor Pola Stein, for example, articulated this position, noting: `I do not accuse anyone that did not hide or help a Jew. We cannot demand from others to sacrifice their lives. One has no right to demand such risks.'"(p. 129). At times, Poles "cracked" under the strain, and killed the Jews they had been hiding for fear that Jews sent away could (whether voluntarily or under torture) divulge the identity of their erstwhile benefactors to the Germans (pp. 93-95).

The Germans removed the boots of fugitive Jews after killing them (p. 67). This upends the assumption that a bootless Jewish corpse must have been the victim of a Pole.

Tec refutes Gross' argument about Jew-helping Poles keeping their acts secret out of fear of postwar anti-Semitic disapproval. In actuality, the secrecy was motivated by the fear that the Communist authorities would connect Jew-helping behavior with past involvement in the anti-Communist underground (p. 126).

All along, Tec consistently emphasis traditional Christian teachings about Jews, but completely ignores the reverse. How many devout Poles were hostile to Jews because they knew that Jews saw them as idolatrous worshippers of the Bastard Son of an adulteress, and of three gods? She frequently mentions the blood libel. Oddly enough, I have spoken with numerous elderly Poles who remember pre-WWII Jews, and have yet to meet a single one who believes in anything like that!

As for the Zydokomuna, Tec comments: "Up to World War II Poland's Communist party was small, numbering not more than 20,000 members. In this Communist party Jews held most of the leadership positions." (pp. 209-210).