Standing Up Stories

Just as our interviewees remember the shock of being bullied, many also told us about how a friend, a neighbor, or a total stranger came to their aid when they needed it most. During the Second World War in German-occupied territories, harboring a Jew was punishable by summary execution, so it meant one literally risked one’s own life to save a Jewish person.

As you will read in this section, the tellers of our tales do not display flashbulb memories, mainly because the process of being saved or hidden was ongoing. It lasted days, weeks, months or even years. And often the people who did the saving never articulated just why they were doing it.

Compared to the Bullying Stories, these Standing Up stories are much longer and far more complex, as they detail the mechanics of rescue and often give us a timeline. And while the majority of those who hid our interviewees did so without telling anyone, in a very few cases, such as Henryk Prajs’s story from Poland, we can read just how many people joined in on the secret—in fact, almost an entire Polish village. In the case of the Kalef sisters from Belgrade, the fact that a school director took them in and didn’t ask for their transfer papers means he knew he shouldn’t ask.

For those interested in what motivates people to become heroes or whistleblowers in this way, we suggest reading the very insightful study entitled Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times, by Eyal Press.