Defying the Nazis

July 15, 2016
Companion volume to the upcoming Ken Burns' PBS documentary about an American couple who rescued people threatened by the Nazi whirlwind in Europe.Readers familiar with Burns' documentaries will recognize some of his techniques transferred here into text by writer Joukowsky (co-director of the film), who first approached Burns about this story featuring his grandparents, Waitstill and Martha Sharp, a story Joukowsky had thoroughly researched and already begun to film. There are passages quoted from correspondence between the two, touching intimate moments, mentions of myriads of documents, photographs, and interviews (which readers must wait for PBS to see), and follow-ups on the principals and some supporting players. Waitstill was a Unitarian minister in Massachusetts when, in 1939, the American Unitarian Association recruited the couple to go to Prague to aid those under imminent Nazi threat. The Sharps succeeded in astonishing fashion, helping people slip out of the country, feeding the hungry, avoiding ubiquitous Nazi surveillance, and rescuing children from utter poverty. There were many near misses, and many moments of frustration, fear, and labyrinthine bureaucracy a la Dickens' Bleak House. There are also some surprises. They helped the son of Thomas Mann escape; Harvard's Jerome Bruner supported Martha during her subsequent run for Congress. The author generally adopts a neutral narrative tone, though he does blast Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long ("anti-Semitic, xenophobic"), and a couple of times he notes the irony of the Sharps spending so much time away from their own children to go abroad to help others' children. But the author's portraits are generally flattering, even when he chronicles the couple's divorce. True tension, though, is hard to create when we know from the outset that both survived the war. A clear, unpretentious volume that justly celebrates a couple who risked all for others.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 15, 2016
Joukowsky teamed with Ken Burns to produce a new documentary for PBS based on this account of his grandparents' heroic rescue and relief efforts during WWII, about which he knew nothing until he was in high school. He chronicles the journey of Unitarian minister Waitstill Sharp and his wife, Martha, from their suburban Massachusetts home to war-torn Europe in 1939 and 1940. Called upon by the American Unitarian Association to offer help, the couple left their two young children behind and headed to Czechoslovakia, arriving less than a month before the Nazi takeover. Waitstill labored to exchange currency for those attempting to flee the country, while Martha bravely shepherded a group of refugees out by train. Eventually forced to leave Czechoslovakia, the Sharps were persuaded to continue their efforts in Vichy France, where they saved countless lives by smuggling milk into the country and 29 children out of it. A harrowing and ultimately inspirational tribute to a brave couple. For the many WWII buffs and those who will want to bolster their experience of the film.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)