tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148048131502110089.post7573093346631976774..comments2024-02-08T03:37:01.136-06:00Comments on Heretic, Rebel, a Thing to Flout: UU Congregation to Premier Story of a Couple Who Saved Thousands from the NazisPatrick Murfinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05191688376908660270noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5148048131502110089.post-31203043859850674162013-04-08T17:50:24.796-05:002013-04-08T17:50:24.796-05:00I am the author of a book called "Rescue and ...I am the author of a book called "Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis" (University of Nebraska Press), which happens to be the only book published about the activities of the Sharps and the Unitarian Service Committee during World War II. I wrote this book because I had a vital desire to know what the Unitarians did and did not do to rescue refugees, one of whom was my father. I hope that your audience views the occasion of the film as a chance to learn more about the people and events of the Unitarian Service Committee during the war. <br /> <br />Unfortunately Two Who Dared and its publicity materials are likely to leave a misleading impression of the scale of the Sharps’ rescue work, which was small in the number of people that they directly helped with emigration. In Prague and in Vichy France Waitstill Sharp was chiefly concerned with other matters, financially supporting the Czech Unitarian congregation and, later, helping to evacuate Czech soldiers’ families from southern France. Martha Sharp had a greater focus on helping refugees and had some success in that regard, working primarily under the leadership of volunteers with the BCRC in Czechoslovakia and the World YMCA in France. I view her project of bringing 27 people -- some of whom were Jewish and endangered -- out of Vichy France in 1940 to the United States, as a tangible achievement, although the Quaker’s children’s project that followed was of a much larger scale. <br /><br />Martha Sharp was, in my mind, a dedicated volunteer, but the summary numbers and period clips offered in the film conflates the achievements of many (unnamed) people who worked in Europe during the war. In the case of the Unitarian Service Committee, the person with the most effective, far-reaching refugee rescue program was another Unitarian minister named Charles Joy. <br /><br />I’d like to recommend to you some highly readable books about the events in this episode of history, please be in touch if you have related questions.<br /><br />- Susan Subak, Ph.D.<br /><br />Czechoslovakia: Gentiles based in Prague who were instrumental in refugee rescue were Doreen Warriner, Beatrice Wellington, Trevor Chadwick, and a number of Quaker women.<br /><br />• William Chadwick, The Rescue of the Prague Refugees 1938/39, Troubador, 2010.<br /><br />• Muriel Emanuel and Vera Gissing, Nicholas Winton and the Rescued Generation, Valentine Mitchell, 2001.<br /><br />Vichy France: Gentiles working out of Marseille who were instrumental in refugee rescue and relief were Varian Fry, Donald Lowrie, Charles Joy and Noel Field.<br /><br />• Andy Marino, A Quiet American: The Secret War of Varian Fry, St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000.<br /><br />• Susan Elisabeth Subak, Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis, University of Nebraska Press, 2010.<br /><br />• Donald A. Lowrie, The Hunted Children, Norton, 1963.<br />cerisehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05427271107980496146noreply@blogger.com