Paldiel highlights the role of non-Jews in extending aid and assistance to Jews inside Nazi-dominated Europe. From the testimonies and files housed at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust martyrs and heroes memorial in Jerusalem, Paldiel presents dozens of stories of the circumstances and odds facing Jews and those who would help them. Includes an eight-page photo insert.

Seventy years after it took place, the Holocaust committed against the Jews of Europe during World War II continues to cast a giant shadow over humankind. Man's inhumanity to man is not a thing of the past. Genocidal action is still commonplace around the globe. Has humankind learned the lessons of the past? Is the human race doomed to live in a perpetual state of war and self-destruction? Explaining the Holocaust shows how, given the right circumstances, human beings can lose their humanity. Does that mean that the ethical teachings of the major religions are wishful thinking? This book...

In this remarkable, historically significant book, Mordecai Paldiel recounts in vivid detail the many ways in which, at great risk to their own lives, Jews rescued other Jews during the Holocaust. In so doing he puts to rest the widely held belief that all Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe wore blinders and allowed themselves to be led like "lambs to the slaughter." Paldiel documents how brave Jewish men and women saved thousands of their fellow Jews through efforts unprecedented in Jewish history.

Encyclopedic in scope and organized by country, Saving One's Own tells the...