Bøker av Carl L. Steinhouse

German Jews who could, escaped the extermination frenzy of Hitler against the Jews. They had lost relatives-murdered by the Nazis-- and fled to America. The men were drafted into the U.S. Army. Many of these were ordered to Camp Ritchie and its Military Intelligence Center because of their ability to speak native German. Intensively trained to use their native language abilities, they became known as the "Ritchie Boys." These Ritchie Boys were trained to interrogate German prisoners of war to obtain current battlefield information and plans to help the Army commanders anticipate the German military moves and defeat them; they translated and interpreted German documents taken off prisoners and dead Germans reflecting current German military thinking. They risked their lives sneaking behind the German lines to capture prisoners and documents. They turned out to be a tremendous asset to Generals like George Patton, commander of the Third Army, and John Gavin, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. The Ritchie Boys did not avoid danger, and many lost their lives in the war against--and defeating--the Nazis.

This is the true story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who risked his life and career to save thousands of Jews from certain death at the hands of the Nazis during the World War II. After the Germans invaded and conquered Poland, tens of thousands of Polish Jews fled to Lithuania to escape the horrors of the Holocaust. Now, the Germans were on the border of Lithuania and Sugihara had no doubt that soon the Germans would attack this small Baltic country. Jews rushed from consulate to consulate-no one, including America, would issue them visas. Working day and night, Sugihara issued, against his government's orders, thousands of visas and convinced the Soviets to permit these Jews to travel across Russia to Japan. A titanic struggle ensued between the pro-American and pro-German factions of the Japanese Foreign Ministry and military. The story examines the conflicted thinking of the Japanese officials, torn between pleasing their German ally by not admitting Jews into Japan and their gratefulness to the Jews for saving Japan in the Russo-Japanese war. The book delves into this little-known but exciting history that resulted in protection of the Jews by the Japanese against the Germans.