Entitled The Forgers. The Forgotten Story of the Holocaust's Most Audacious Rescue Operation, the book tells the story of how Aleksander Ładoś, who headed Poland's unofficial legation in Switzerland in World War II, and his team forged passports and identity documents for some 10,000 Jews to help save them from Nazi death camps.
The book will be published in the UK by Penguin in August and by Basic Books in the United States in October.
In its publicity materials, Penguin describes the efforts of Polish diplomats to provide Jews with passports of Latin American countries as a “a wholly remarkable - and until now, completely unknown - humanitarian operation … one of the largest actions to aid Jews of the entire war.”
Aleksander Ładoś (1891-1963). Image: Wikimedia Commons [Public domain]
The British publisher adds: “The Forgers tells this extraordinary story for the first time. We follow the desperate bids of Jews to obtain these life-saving documents; we witness their painful uncertainty over whether they will offer the desired protection, 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.”
Pictures of Jews saved by the Bern-based group of Polish diplomats during World War II. Photo: Karol Darmoros/IAR
Born in 1968, Moorhouse is an expert in modern German and Polish history, especially the World War II period.
His books include Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler's Capital 1939-1945; The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941; The Third Reich in 100 Objects; and First to Fight. Poland 1939.
In 2020, Moorhouse received the Polish foreign ministry's History Prize for First to Fight: Poland 1939. He is a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Warsaw.
(mk/gs)
