Yale Book Uncovers the Story of a Jewish Leader’s

astonishing Rescue by a Nazi Soldier

When Hitler invaded Warsaw, the Rebbe Joseph Schneersohn, leader of the Lubavitcher Jews, was among the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in the besieged city.  Surrounded by death, fire, starvation, and brutality, plagued by ill health, and a target for the SS, the Rebbe seemed unlikely to survive. But Schneersohn did escape from Europe, even as millions perished, thanks to one of the most amazing rescues of World War II.

Rescued from the Reich: How One of Hitler’s Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe,  published in November by Yale University Press, uncovers the true story of the rescue and of the secret collaboration between American officials and German military intelligence that made it possible. Bryan Mark Rigg, author of the seminal book Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers, makes vivid the treacherous journey to safety, the heroism and the moral weaknesses of the participants, and the impact of the rescue on the Lubavitchers, on Jews in America and abroad, and on the course of the war.

With nuance and power, Rigg introduces the reader to Ernst Bloch, the Nazi officer who tracked down the hidden Rebbe in Warsaw and risked all to lead him and his followers to safety.  Disfigured by battle wounds suffered in World War I, Bloch was a decorated career soldier and brilliant spy whose service to the German military earned him Aryan status, despite his Jewish father. Fiercely loyal to Germany but privately skeptical of Hitler, Bloch intimidated SS guards, concealed his human cargo from the Gestapo, and even played the role of Nazi brutalizer during the perilous escape through occupied Poland and Nazi Germany to Latvia. Rigg’s heart-stopping account of near catastrophe makes real the peril both Bloch and Schneersohn faced.

Drawing on interviews and documentary research, Rigg also gives the reader a powerful sense of the Rebbe himself—his faith, his ideas, his terrifying experiences before and during the war, and his priorities for the Lubavitchers after his rescue. Rigg’s portrait reveals a man of unshakable dedication to the practice of his faith and to the survival of his movement. Although he initially worked hard to rescue Jews in Europe, efforts that were largely unsuccessful, he ultimately focused on convincing all Jews that the Holocaust was God’s punishment for their sins and that they should change their ways and become more observant.  He emphasized that in this cruel time of history, God was giving them the signs of Redemption and that Jews should prepare themselves for the Messiah.

A number of influential Americans—Senators, administration officials, Justice Louis Brandeis—used their power to make the almost unthinkable rescue of the Lubavitcher Rebbe possible. And the Lubavitchers in America lobbied tirelessly for their leader’s rescue. Rigg examines the complicated reasons why so much effort was expended by American officials to save a few individuals while the administration ignored the plight of ordinary Jews trapped in Europe and failed to hear the pleas of their American loved ones. He explores the reasons the rescued Rebbe focused most of his energies on the spiritual well-being of his flock in America rather than taking radical political action to push the government toward more liberal immigration policies. (In the Rebbe’s view, only God could change a situation for the better and Jews needed to keep this in mind.) And Rigg shows how very difficult each and every rescue was in a world of anti-semitic immigration bureaucrats, reluctant politicians, and detached citizens.

The harrowing story this book tells is a reflection of the complexity of history, of human identity, and of morality. Rescued from the Reich shows us that individuals often defy the monolithic categories of good and evil. As we strive to understand and learn from the great disaster of the Holocaust, this book reminds us of the ambiguity and unpredictability of all human interactions, and of the importance of individual action in human history.

 Rescued from the Reich: How One of Hitler’s Soldiers Saved the Lubavitcher Rebbe

By Bryan Mark Rigg

Published November 2004. by Yale University Press

$26.00 hardcover

288 pages, 50 illustrations

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