The little-known story of the Sharps whose rescue and relief missions across Europe during World War II saved the lives of countless Jews, refugees, and political dissidents. Official companion to the Ken Burns PBS film. For readers captivated by the story of Antonina Zabinski as told in The Zookeeper's Wife and other stories of rescue missions during WWII, Defying the Nazis is an essential read. In 1939, the Reverend Waitstill Sharp, a young Unitarian minister, and his wife, Martha, a social worker, accepted a mission from the American Unitarian Association: they were to leave their home and young children in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and travel to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to help address the mounting refugee crisis. Seventeen ministers had been asked to undertake this mission and had declined; Rev. Sharp was the first to accept the call for volunteers in Europe. Armed with only $40,000, Waitstill and Martha quickly learned the art of spy craft and undertook dangerous rescue and relief missions across war-torn Europe, saving refugees, political dissidents, and Jews on the eve of World War II. After narrowly avoiding the Gestapo themselves, the Sharps returned to Europe in 1940 as representatives of the newly formed Unitarian Service Committee and continued their relief efforts in Vichy France. A fascinating portrait of resistance as told through the story of one courageous couple, Defying the Nazis offers a rare glimpse at high-stakes international relief efforts during WWII and tells the remarkable true story of a couple whose faith and commitment to social justice inspired them to risk their lives to save countless others.

Defying Hitler was written in 1939 and focuses on the year 1933, when, as Hitler assumed power, its author was a 25-year-old German law student, in training to join the German courts as a junior administrator. His book tries to answer two questions people have been asking since the end of World War II: “How were the Nazis possible?” and “Why did no one stop them?” Sebastian Haffner’s vivid first-person account, written in real time and only much later discovered by his son, makes the rise of the Nazis psychologically comprehensible. “An astonishing memoir... [a] masterpiece.” — Gabriel Schoenfeld, The New York Times Book Review “A short, stabbing, brilliant book... It is important, first, as evidence of what one intelligent German knew in the 1930s about the unspeakable nature of Nazism, at a time when the overwhelming majority of his countrymen claim to have know nothing at all. And, second, for its rare capacity to reawaken anger about those who made the Nazis possible.” — Max Hastings, The Sunday Telegraph “Defying Hitler communicates one of the most profound and absolute feelings of exile that any writer has gotten between covers.” — Charles Taylor, Salon “Sebastian Haffner was Germany’s political conscience, but it is only now that we can read how he experienced the Nazi terror himself — that is a memoir of frightening relevance today.” — Heinrich Jaenicke, Stern “The prophetic insights of a fairly young man... help us understand the plight, as Haffner refers to it, of the non-Nazi German.” — The Denver Post “Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler is a most brilliant and imaginative book — one of the most important books we have ever published.” — Lord Weidenfeld

"The true story of an audacious resistance campaign undertaken by an unlikely pair: two French women -- Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe -- who drew on their skills as Parisian avant-garde artists to write and distribute wicked insults against Hitler and calls to desert, a PSYOPs tactic known as "paper bullets," designed to demoralize Nazi troops occupying their adopted home of Jersey in the British Channel Islands"--

Tells the life story of the German army captain who began as a strong supporter of Hitler and changed to a rescuer of Jews and others after witnessing Nazi brutalities.

The official companion to the Ken Burns PBS film. The little-known story of the Sharps, whose rescue missions across Europe during World War II saved the lives of countless Jews, refugees, and political dissidents—for readers of The Zookeeper’s Wife. In 1939, the Reverend Waitstill Sharp, a young Unitarian minister, and his wife, Martha, a social worker, accepted a mission from the American Unitarian Association: they were to leave their home and young children in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and travel to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to help address the mounting refugee crisis. Seventeen ministers had been asked to undertake this mission and had declined; Rev. Sharp was the first to accept the call for volunteers in Europe. Armed with only $40,000, Waitstill and Martha quickly learned the art of spy craft and undertook dangerous rescue and relief missions across war-torn Europe, saving refugees, political dissidents, and Jews on the eve of World War II. After narrowly avoiding the Gestapo themselves, the Sharps returned to Europe in 1940 as representatives of the newly formed Unitarian Service Committee and continued their relief efforts in Vichy France. A fascinating portrait of resistance as told through the story of one courageous couple, Defying the Nazis offers a rare glimpse at high-stakes international relief efforts during WWII and tells the remarkable true story of a couple whose faith and commitment to social justice inspired them to risk their lives to save countless others.

Nazi Germany is remembered as a nation of willing fanatics, but countless Germans actively resisted Hitler. No matter how small the act, the danger was the same: any display of defiance was met with arrest, interrogation, torture, and even death. Thomas and Lewis follow the underground network of Germans who believed standing against the Fuhrer to be more important than their own survival. Their bravery is astonishing, and the authors illuminate their struggles, yielding an accessible narrative history with the pace and excitement of a thriller. -- adapted from jacket.

"Mostly unknown until immortalized in the Oscar-winning film The Pianist, Wilm Hosenfeld, a former ardent supporter of Adolf Hitler, changed from enemy occupier to rescuer"--

Initially an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler, Wilm Hosenfeld became aware of the Third Reich’s relentless brutality when he, a captain in the German army, was stationed in Poland. Witnessing Nazis’ the inhumanity changed Hosenfeld from an enemy occupier to a rescuer. Includes historical maps, as well as a glossary, timeline, character list, and a full index.

As a successful businessman, Ernst Leitz helped hundreds of Jews escape death by creating an escape path out of Nazi Germany. His business manufactured cameras and photography equipment under the Leica brand. He sent Jewish employees abroad to safer places. Besides the employees themselves, Leitz helped their families and some of his Jewish neighbors and business associates flee by moving overseas. Jewish employees received training and permits that allowed them to travel abroad as sales agents for Leica products. Leitz organized and paid for their transit England, USA, Brazil, and Hong Kong. He gave them a Leica camera, which could easily be sold. Leitz paid their expenses until they could find employment in their new home. Many found work in the photo industry. Leitz did not speak of this but his son, Gunther, tried to write an article about the refugees. Leitz did not want to share his story. Perhaps he felt it would be boasting. He believed he had done what any decent person would do in his position. Gunther later said, "No one can ever know what other Germans had done for the persecuted within the limits of their ability to act." Like Oskar Schindler, Leitz was a member of the Nazi party. Many prominent people joined the party not because they agreed with Nazi policies, but because doing so allowed them to be left alone. They could continue running their businesses "under the radar" of Nazi scrutiny. Also, the Nazis' dependence on the military optics produced by Leica, made his company valuable to them. Leitz's heroism came to light many years later, when Rabbi Frank Dabba Smith of London, then still a student, saw Leitz refugees mentioned in a photography magazine. One of these refugees was Kurt Rosenberg, a camera mechanic. Leitz helped him get a visa to America, paid for his journey to New York in 1938, and got him a job at the Leica showroom on Fifth Avenue. Ernst Leitz's aid to his Jewish associates came from the heart. Also, from his determination to do what he believed was right. Gunther Leitz said, "He felt responsible for his workers, their families, for our neighbors in Wetzlar." Ernst Leitz put those feelings into action, and hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people are alive today because of him."

The dramatic story of neighbors in a small Danish fishing village who, during the Holocaust, shelter a Jewish family waiting to be ferried to safety in Sweden - based on a true story. It is 1943 in Nazi-occupied Denmark. Anett and her parents are hiding a Jewish woman and her son, Carl, in their cellar until a fishing boat can take them across the sound to neutral Sweden. The soldiers patrolling their street are growing suspicious, so Carl and his mama must make their way to the harbor despite a cloudy sky with no moon to guide them. Worried about their safety, Anett devises a clever and unusual plan for their safe passage to the harbor.