Rescue as Resistance

Arno Lustiger creates a re-evaluation of the actions of the rescuers of persecuted Jews.

Arno Lustiger describes the efforts made to save Jewish lives in the whole of occupied Europe from a new perspective. By so doing he extends the criteria of what is generally perceived as Holocaust Rescue: he not only describes the actions of those who were honoured as »Righteous among the Nations«, but also rescue attempts which have been forgotten, those made by diplomats, other Jews, clergymen etc. Furthermore he makes no distinction between successful and failed rescue attempts, and there is no hierarchy amongst the rescuers. In this way, he brings to light the small, everyday efforts to help, undertaken by individuals and networks; although these were unable to stop the murder of the European Jews, they must still be seen as acts of resistance against the Nazis. Against this background, Lustiger coined the phrase »Rescue as Resistance«.
The personal proximity of a holocaust survivor, who owes his own life to various rescue stories, combined with the scientific distance of the historian, makes this volume a powerful reading experience and broadens the horizons of our knowledge of behavioural possibilities in the practice of resistance.
A comprehensive documentation of the everyday and the spectacular, the successful and the failed rescue attempts throughout Europe.


The Author
Prof. Dr. h.c. Arno Lustiger was born in Poland in 1924. He survived the concentration camps in Buchenwald and Auschwitz. He is a co-founder of the Jewish Community in Frankfurt and a Honorary Chairman of the Friends Association of the Leo Baeck Institute in Germany, and was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany.
Since 1945 he has lived in Frankfurt am Main, working as a historian, author and publicist.