The Book of The Just: The Unsung Heroes Who Rescued Jews from Hitler / Israel has honored more than 10,000 men and women who risked their lives, freedom, and careers to save Jews in a Nazi Europe where it was open season for their systematic and random slaughter. The Book of the Just tells the stories of forty of these "righteous among the nations", unsung heroes of the Holocaust, ordinary people who showed extraordinary courage, daring, and simple human decency in the face of almost unspeakable horror - at a time when most people looked the other way. They came from many countries, religions, and walks of life, but they all shared a burning faith in individual responsibility and a passionate commitment to justice. These are dramatic and inspiring accounts, usually in the words of the rescuers and those they rescued, ranging from a German factory manager who saved 1,500 employees in Galicia; to a Portuguese consul in Bordeaux who wrote visas for 10,000 Jews in three days; to a British prisoner of war who traded dead Jews for the living; to a Swiss Red Cross worker who broke the rules of neutrality by shielding thousands of Jews in Budapest; to a Japanese consul who rescued the children of an entire yeshivah. By using personal testimonies, Eric Silver vividly conveys the anguish of the hunted, the bravery of their liberators, and the constant fear of betrayal, discovery, persecution, and execution that haunted them both. The Book of the Just is riveting oral history, a powerful contribution to Holocaust literature, an act of remembrance and commemoration, and a salute to all those who helped to save a whole world by saving even just one life.
