Never Despair
"Born into a cultivated, middle-class Jewish family in Germany, as a young man Riegner fled the country, moving soon to Switzerland after Hitler's 1933 rise to power. He went to work for the World Jewish Congress and stayed with that organization all his life, taking on many of its most difficult assignments and most crucial initiatives: rescue programs and diplomacy in response to the Holocaust; broad-scale human rights struggles at the League of Nations and later at the United Nations; relations with Christian churches; advocacy on behalf of North African Jewry; German reparations; and work with international student organizations." "In Never Despair, Riegner recounts his efforts behind the scenes and offers a firsthand estimate of many of the leading international figures of the past century. This is an essential book for students of the Holocaust and of the Jewish role in world affairs from World War II to the end of the century."--Jacket.