Rescue and Flight: American Relief Workers Who Defied the Nazis

When Susan Elisabeth Subak discovered that members of the Unitarian Church had helped her Jewish father immigrate to the United States, she was unaware of the broader impact the organization had made during World War II. Then, through years of research, Subak uncovered the little-known story of the Unitarian Service Committee, which rescued European refugees during World War II, and the remarkable individuals who made it happen.

Rescue and Flight is the story of the Unitarian Service Committee, one of the few American organizations committed to helping refugees during World War II. The staff who ran the committee assisted those endangered by the Nazi regime, from famous writers and artists to the average citizen. Part of a larger network of American relief workers, the Unitarian Service Committee helped refugees negotiate the official and legal channels of escape and, when those methods failed, the more complex underground channels. From their offices in Portugal and southern France they created escape routes through Europe to the United States, South America, and England and rescued many hundreds, often at great personal risk.

Susan Elisabeth Subak is an environmental scientist and the of The Five-Ton Life: Carbon, America, and the Culture That May Save Us (Nebraska, 2018). She has written numerous articles and essays that have appeared in publications such as the New Republic and Climatic Change. William F. Schulz is an affiliate professor at Meadville Lombard Theological School and resident emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. He served as executive director of Amnesty International USA from 1994 to 2006.