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How Six Unlikely Heroes Saved Thousands of Jews from the Holocaust
by Jan Brokken
The remarkable story of how a consul and his allies helped save thousands of Jews from the Holocaust in one of the greatest rescue operations of the twentieth century.
Jan Zwartendijk was just a businessman who worked for Philips, a manufacturer of lightbulbs and radios―until he became Dutch consul and concocted a secret plan that would ultimately save over 2,000 Jews from the Holocaust. An unsung hero, those he saved knew him only as "Mr. Philips Radio." This is his story.
In the capital of Lithuania, desperate Jewish refugees faced annihilation in the Holocaust. That was when Zwartendijk―with the help of Chiune Sugihara, the consul for Japan―chose to break his country's diplomatic rules. Together, the two officials opened a route to freedom. Zwartendijk issued thousands of visas to the Dutch colony of Curaçao on the other side of the world, and Sugihara ensured a clear path, allowing refugees to travel on the Trans-Siberian Express all through Soviet Russia to Vladivostok, further to Japan, and onwards to China.
Many of these Jewish refugees survived, but Zwartendijk and Sugihara were both shunned by their own countries after the war, their courageous actions left unheralded.
In The Just, renowned author Jan Brokken wrests this story from oblivion and traces the journeys of a number of the rescued Jews. This epic narrative shows how, even in life-threatening circumstances, some people make the right choice at the right time.
"Brokken brings these largely unknown men to vivid life, and few readers will come away from the book untouched by their stories. A deeply moving account of a few brave men who worked against the Nazi horror in the early days of World War II." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[A] strong narrative about ordinary people performing extraordinary deeds at great risk to their personal safety...In telling the life story of Jan Zwartendijk, The Just adds one more piece to the memory of the Holocaust." - Foreword Reviews (starred review)
"[A]n inspirational and richly detailed look at bureaucratic efforts to help Jews escape Europe in the early years of WWII...Evocative portraits of his protagonists' family lives deepen Brokken's depictions of their hazardous actions. Readers will take heart from these obscure yet consequential acts of courage." - Publishers Weekly
"Weaving their stories, along with those of Jewish families rescued through the use of these visas, is remarkable for both the storytelling and the depth of research the author has undertaken to bring it to a wider audience." - Booklist
"The Just is a riveting epic, a masterful interweaving of many threads and many journeys, written with consummate skill, clarity, and acute insight into human nature. Brokken restores to history, and to memory, acts of profound goodness and courage performed by individuals who responded to the frantic knock on the door by displaced people whose lives were in great peril. It will inspire you." - Arnold Zable, author of Café Scheherazade
This information about The Just was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jan Brokken is a writer of fiction, travel, and literary nonfiction. He gained international fame with The Rainbird, The Blind Passengers, My Little Madness, Baltic Souls, In the House of the Poet, The Reprisal, and The Cossack Garden, and his books have been translated into ten languages.
David McKay is an award-winning literary translator who lives in The Hague. His recent translations include The Convert by Stefan Hertmans, a novel about a young Norman woman who converts to Judaism at the time of the First Crusade, and the classic political novel Max Havelaar about Dutch misrule in the East Indies, a joint translation with Ina Rilke that was shortlisted for the Oxford Weidenfeld Prize.
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