Download or read book The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz written by David Kranzler and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2000-10-01 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Mantello, First Secretary of the El Salvador Consulate in Geneva from 1942 to 1945, defied strict censorship to launch a press campaign against the daily deportation of 12,000 Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. This is the true story of one man’s efforts to bring horrific news of the Nazi genocide to the Swiss public and to the rest of the world. Armed with this information, prominent Swiss church leaders and theologians condemned the unfolding Holocaust from their pulpits, spurring large public demonstrations. In 400 articles appearing in 120 newspapers, Mantello reached opinion makers throughout the world community. International pressure halted the Hungarian deportations, and Mantello distributed thousands of Salvadoran citizenship papers to Jews in Nazi-occupied territories. In addition to Mantello’s role, Kranzler shows how Swiss theologians such as karl barth and paul Vogt mobilized thousands of Christians against the Germans and against the indifference of the Swiss government and the International Red Cross. This fresh look at the intersection of politics and religion also allows for a new assessment of Swiss complicity in the crimes of the Nazi Third Reich.

Download or read book Heroine of Rescue written by Joseph Friedenson and published by Artscroll. This book was released on 1984 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of Sternbuch (1905-1971), who was born and raised in Antwerp as the daughter of Rabbi Mordechai Rottenberg, Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox community. Following her marriage to Rabbi Yitzchok Sternbuch, they went to live in St. Gallen, Switzerland. From 1938 their home was open to Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Recha also set up a rescue network to help Jews cross the border illegally and then go on to other countries. Notes that Saly Mayer, head of the Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund, actually hindered the rescue work. In spring 1939, Recha was arrested and imprisoned briefly for aiding illegal immigrants. In 1941 all charges were dropped, since she also helped Jews obtain visas to other countries, which was in the interest of the Swiss officials. The Sternbuchs then began to send food and medical supplies to Jews in the Polish ghettos and to Jewish refugees in Shanghai, setting up the Hilfsverein für Jüdische Flüchtlinge in Shanghai (HIJEFS). After the war, through this organization, they helped survivors in DP camps, saved Jewish children who had been hidden in non-Jewish homes, and provided aid for many rabbis and Jewish scholars who had survived.