The secret history of one of the largest—and least-known—rescue operations of World War II
Between 1940 and 1943, a group of Polish diplomats in Switzerland engaged in a wholly remarkable—and until now, completely unknown—humanitarian operation. In concert with Jewish activists, they masterminded a systematic program of forging passports and identity documents for Latin American countries, which were then smuggled into German-occupied Europe to save the lives of thousands of Jews facing extermination in the Holocaust.
With the international community failing to act, the operation was one of the largest actions to aid Jews of the entire war. The Forgers tells this extraordinary story for the first time. We follow the desperate bids of Jews to obtain these lifesaving documents as the Nazi death machine draws ever closer. And we witness the quiet heroism of a group of ordinary men who decided to do something rather than nothing and saved thousands of lives.
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The Forgers is an important contribution to the way we understand international responses to the Holocaust. Powerfully told and meticulously researched, Moorhouse’s new book outlines the courageous efforts of the Lados Group, a circle of Polish diplomats in Switzerland who provided false documents for thousands of Jews during the Second World War in an attempt to save as many as possible from persecution and death. The Forgers is an astonishing book about one of the most ambitious rescue operations of the Holocaust.
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Katja Hoyer, author of Beyond the Wall