Research Catalog

Title

The Rabbi saved by Hitler's soldiers : Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and his astonishing rescue / Bryan Mark Rigg.

Author

Rigg, Bryan Mark, 1971-

Publication

• Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, [2016]
• ©2016

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xx, 490 pages; 23 cm

Summary

• " "Were this story a novel, it would have the character of an implausible fable, but as often occurred in the Holocaust, reality exceeds the imagination."--Michael Berenbaum, from the Foreword When Hitler invaded Warsaw in the fall of 1939, hundreds of thousands of civilians were trapped in the besieged city. The Rebbe Joseph Schneersohn, the leader of the ultra-orthodox Lubavitcher Jews, was among them. When word of his plight went out, a group of American Jews initiated what would ultimately become one of the strangest--and most miraculous--rescues of World War II. And this is the incredible but true story that Bryan Mark Rigg tells in The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers. Amid the chaos and hell of the emerging Holocaust, a small group of German soldiers shepherded Rebbe Schneersohn and his Hasidic followers out of Poland. In the course of the daring escape--traveling by train to Berlin, rerouted to Latvia and Sweden, and carried by ship through U-boat-infested waters to America--the Rebbe would learn a shocking truth. The leader of the rescue operation, the decorated Wehrmacht soldier Ernst Bloch, was himself half-Jewish, and a victim of the rising tide of German anti-Semitism. Perhaps even more remarkable were the central roles of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Nazi military intelligence service, and of Helmuth Wohlthat, chief administrator of Goring's Four Year Plan. Pursuing every lead, amassing critical evidence, pulling together all the pieces of what could well be a political thriller, Rigg reconstructs the Rebbe's improbable escape, and tells a harrowing story about identity and moral responsibility. His book is the definitive account of an extraordinary episode in the history of World War II. "--
• "A book that incorporates new research and analysis on the improbable tale of how Americans and Nazis collaborated to save Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersoh (1880-1950), the charismatic world-wide leader of a small ultra-Orthodox community of Hasidic Jews originating in western Russia and headquartered in Warsaw at the outbreak of Hitler's invasion of Poland"--

Series Statement

Modern war studies

Uniform Title

Modern war studies.

Subjects

• Rabbis > Poland > Biography
• World War, 1939-1945 > Jews > Rescue > Poland > Warsaw
• Habad > Poland > History > 20th century
• Hasidim > Poland > Biography
• Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) > Poland
• Schneersohn, Joseph Isaac, 1880-1950

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 439-461) and index.

Contents

The Invasion of Poland and the Rescue Setup -- The Religious Climate during Hitler's Quest for Empire -- The Lubavitchers and Their Rebbe -- The Rebbe in German-Occupied Poland -- A Plan Takes Shape -- The Nazi Connection -- Bloch's Secret Mission -- The Search Begins -- A Lawyer's Work -- The Angel -- The Rebbe's Escape Route -- Flight -- Waiting in Riga -- Crossing the Perilous Ocean -- The Rebbe and the Holocaust: Chabad in America -- The Fate of the Rescuers -- What Would Have Happened if Hitler Had Won the War?

Call Number

JFE 16-10047

ISBN

• 9780700622610 (hardback)
• 0700622616 (hardback)
• 9780700622627 (paperback)
• 0700622624 (paperback)

LCCN

2016020351

OCLC

948670859

Author

Rigg, Bryan Mark, 1971- author.

Title

The Rabbi saved by Hitler's soldiers : Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and his astonishing rescue / Bryan Mark Rigg.

Publisher

Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, [2016]

Copyright Date

©2016

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Modern war studies

Modern war studies.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 439-461) and index.

Research Call Number

JFE 16-10047