Nechama Tec

"In this, Nechama Tec's fifth book on the Holocaust, vivid individual stories blend effortlessly with detailed comparisons of wartime experiences of women and men. The result is a gripping account of the distinct coping strategies and ultimate fate of each sex.". "Did women and men react differently under extreme conditions? Tec seeks answers by examining their experiences in a variety of Holocaust settings - during the initial stage of German occupation and in the ghettos, the Nazi concentration and death camps, the illegal Christian world, underground movements, and the forests. She shows how in each of these environments the women and men negotiated the rough terrain of a coercive and oppressive society. The Holocaust gender tapestry is complex, and this book carefully illuminates its varied strands."--BOOK JACKET.

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. This book focuses on such "righteous Christians." Tec, herself a Holocaust survivor helped by Christians, vividly recreates through hundreds of cases what it was like to pass and hide among Christians and what it was like to rescue Jews. Limiting her compass to Poland, where anti-Semitism was particularly extreme, the author interviewed dozens of people now living in many lands and also examined a vast array of published accounts and unpublished testimonies yielding case histories of over 500 Polish helpers. As the book preserves for posterity the heroism of such people as Celka, the impoverished governess, and her paralyzed father, who took into their one-room apartment a Jewish child, refused to baptize her without her family's permission, and even fed her before they themselves ate, or Dr. Felix Kabus, who developed and frequently performed an operation that camouflaged circumcision, or the famous anti-Semitic author who wrote publicly about what was happening to the Jews, the book fills a gap in our knowledge of the Holocaust.

This is the true story of Nechama Bawnik Tec, whose family found refuge with Polish Christians during the Holocaust. It is a dramatic tale of how an eleven-year-old child learned to "pass" in the forbidding Christian world, a quietly moving coming-of-age story, and a unique celebration of the best human qualities that surface under the worst conditions. - Back cover.

Richard Hollander was devastated when his parents were killed in an automobile accident in 1986. While rummaging through their attic, he discovered letters from a family he never knew - his father's mother, three sisters, and their husbands and children. The letters were written from Krakow, Poland, between 1939 and 1942. They depict day-to-day life under the most extraordinary pain and stress, yet the family remained a caring, loving unit. At the same time, Richard's father, Joseph Hollander, was fighting the United States government to avoid deportation and death. The struggle over whether to deport Joseph involves such historic figures as Eleanor Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, senators, congressmen, federal agency heads, and judges. Richard was astounded to learn that his father saved the lives of many Polish Jews, but - despite heroic efforts - could not save his family.

In 1943, as the German occupation of France continues, the Tessier siblings increase their involvement in the Resistance while staying out of the way of the Millice, the Vichy military police. Includes facts about Charles De Gaulle and his support of resistance movements.

The prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust is one of helpless victims. But in fact, many Jews struggled against the terrors of the Third Reich. This is the riveting history of one such group, a forest community numbering more than 1,200 Jews, that carried out the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Nechama Tec reconstructs the amazing details of how these men and women of all ages -- hungry, largely unarmed, and exposed to harsh winter weather -- managed not only to survive but to take on the duel role of fighters and rescuers. Under the guidance of their charismatic leader, Tuvia Bielski, they smuggled Jews out of heavily guarded ghettos, led retaliatory raids against Nazi collaborators, and offered protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them. - Publisher.