In his introduction to Survivors, Bob Moore points out a truism about the literature dealing with the survival and rescue of European Jews during the Holocaust—that much of it is anecdotal (in the form of memoirs, personal accounts) or otherwise focused on “interrogating and understanding the role of individuals” (p. 7), both survivors and rescuers. Because of this focus, he argues, four key situational elements in understanding Jewish survival are missing: the geographical and social contexts to acts of rescue by non-Jews; the relationship between individual acts of rescue and networks, both Jewish and non-Jewish; the structure and organization of Jewish communities; and the interrelationship between rescue by Gentiles and Jewish self-help. All of these factors determined the likelihood and nature of Jewish survival. The result is, he argues, a distorted picture based on often atypical individual experiences. Moore's objective, then, is to place this self-help and rescue in a wider chronological and national context in order to construct a clearer picture of how some Jews survived. The importance of these factors is made clear when the Jewish experience in western Europe is explored, for Moore's “national context” (perhaps more accurately, “contexts”) is primarily France, Belgium, and the Netherlands—his chosen geographic focus, based on an acknowledgment of the qualitative difference in occupation experience, for Jews and non-Jews alike, between western and eastern Europe.

While his intent is to do a comparative study of survival and its means, his book is divided between the Norwegian, Belgian, Dutch, and French experiences, with parallels and contrasts noted throughout. Only in talking about the escape routes is this truly a western European story. Otherwise, the national contexts are essential to the explanation, as Moore makes clear that the situational contexts (national, regional, cultural, religious) are crucial to understanding, for example, why it is that sixty percent of Jews in Belgium survived the war (seventy-five percent in France; ninety-five percent in Denmark), yet only twenty-five percent in the Netherlands. His review of the various means of survival is comprehensive, covering the gamut from individual diplomatic efforts by various consuls (Vladimir Vochoc, Czechoslovakia; Arie Sevenster, the Netherlands; Aristide de Sousa Mendes, Portugal) and welfare organizations (Varian Fry; the Quakers; the YMCA; the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) located in southern France in the first months of the invasion and subsequent occupation; the various resistance networks that rescued Jews both inadvertently and specifically; the Catholic Church; the nonconformist churches; and the Jewish self-help organizations, such as the Comité de Défense des Juifs (CDJ) in Belgium and the van Dien group in Amsterdam. In addition, he does an admirable job of discussing individual acts of rescue, Jewish (another form of self-help), non-Jewish, and even Nazi.

A sweeping review of all the forms of assistance provided, it is, at times, not as rigorous in its structure as it could be. Moore is perhaps the least successful in his handling of the Catholic Church's involvement in rescue. He attempts to draw a distinction between the Catholic Church as an institution and the priests (through to bishops and archbishops) who, as individuals, protected Jews either by hiding them or by assisting in their escape. The distinction is an important one and the subject of heated debate. Moore is not convincing, however, in his explanation of why Catholic priests in Belgium were more actively engaged in rescue (and more successful), having created a number of secret associations of priests dedicated to the task, than those in the Netherlands. On one hand, he writes that “it would be wrong to suggest that all this [the Belgian priests' efforts] was driven by initiatives or ‘hints’ from the Church leadership” (p. 193), but on the other, writes of “the active role played by the Catholic Church as an institution [author's italics]” (p. 282) in Belgium. He further concludes that part of the explanation of the Dutch tragedy was “the relative absence of the Christian churches as organizations in providing an impetus to organize further rescue [author's italics]” (p. 257), yet the Catholic Church as an organization [my italics] did little for Jews anywhere in Europe. Its members may have done much, but not as representatives of the institution or under instruction from the hierarchy—which Moore also points out repeatedly. The challenge is distinguishing between the priests as individuals and the institution of which they were a part.

This gets to the central dilemma of the book and the ultimate question with which Moore is grappling—how does one explain Jewish survival, or failure to survive, in western Europe? He rightly points out the importance of contextual factors—the nature and cohesiveness of prewar Jewish communities and their reaction to Nazi occupation; those communities' degree of integration into the larger non-Jewish society, which shaped the non-Jewish response; prehistories of defying the authorities (be it in the form of smuggling, in the border areas; WWI experiences of resisting a German occupation; or a history of Protestant persecution and resistance, in the case of France). Most importantly, he raises the question of individual motivations for rescue, in all its messiness: self-preservation, religious conviction, altruism, humanitarian concerns, particular circumstances, friendship, opposition to German aims, financial gain. What becomes clear, by the end of the book, is that ultimately much of the explanation hinges on individuals' choices—whether to help, to hide, to report. Context helped to shape those choices but, sotto voce, Moore also seems to argue that survival hinged on individual decisions, made in the moment by both the pursued and the potential rescuer, be they an individual or an organization. And this is the source of a tension that permeates the book, I think, as Moore seeks to bring structure and an explanatory framework to something that is ultimately unexplainable in that rigorous a way. As he alludes to repeatedly, ultimately survival had much to do with luck; with making the right choice, rather than the wrong one; turning left, instead of right. It is a much less comforting explanation—that the fate of an individual, a family, a community can be determined so randomly—but in the end, probably an accurate one.