Book chapter
Gentiles as Carers
Stealth Altruism
2017
Abstract
In a public lecture on October 21, 2010, Samuel Bak, a renowned Holocaust-focused artist, expressed his gratitude to the SS commandant of a slave labor camp in which he and his mother had been held prisoners. Some never-to-be-known-number of Gentiles—estimated to be fifty thousand to five hundred thousand—dared to secretly aid in the survival of European Jews. Franz Leitner, a Gentile prisoner at Buchenwald, had charge of a barrack of Jewish children and teenagers. At great risk to himself he secured extra food for them, shielded many from murderous work assignments, and kept their names off lists for transport to the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp. The risks run by Gentiles who helped Jews were extraordinary. It is estimated that over twenty-five thousand men and women honored by Yad Vashem as "Righteous among the Nations" saved the lives of almost three hundred thousand European Jews.
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Details
- Title
- Gentiles as Carers
- Creators
- Arthur B. Shostak
- Publication Details
- Stealth Altruism
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Edition
- 1
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Sociology; Culture and Communication [Historical]
- Other Identifier
- 991020705338304721