Shedding Our Stars

Hans Calmeyer helped to save thousands of jews from sure death even while staying in the system and working for the germans. This is his story and how he saved the author, Laureen Nussbaum, and her family along with several others. This book was riveting for it is an account of not just how Laureen saved her boy friend's life but, also of how life turned out after the war. There are more details here than what we got from Anne Frank's diaries (a contemporary) about Amsterdam. In fact, Otto Frank, the only survivor from Anne Frank's family stayed a friend with this family.
Calmeyer was instrumental in helping to keep thousands of jews from the concentration camps. He was a german bureaucrat and did whatever he could by way of providing appropriate paperwork to save as many as he could. The book is his biography while also being Laureen's memoir of those times and beyond.
It was fascinating to read so many details of lives at a time when neighbours and friends had turned on each other. Humanity goes on because there are decent and morally upright men in the mix. We will always need stories like these to give us hope for a future that is increasingly become narrow minded and selfish. It is a must-read for that.