Defying The Nazis: The Sharps' War

Martha Sharp learns skills and clandestine methods from Quaker leadership to save refugees fleeing the Holocaust.

Peter grew up next to the city hall, and remembers seeing Gestapo, people removed from crowds at the embassy, and his parents' fear in World War II era Europe.

Gerda Mayer of Vienna recalls saying good bye in 1939 to her parents as she boarded a plane to England as part of the Kindertransport (Children's Transport), a series of rescue missions that saved thousands of Jewish children. The rest of Gerda's family was killed in the Holocaust.

Hear Waitstill Sharp's account, narrated by Tom Hanks, of money laundering to help refugees fleeing the Holocaust. He weighed the legal ethics of his actions and ruled that it was more important to save imperiled lives.

Waitstill and Martha Sharp, along with some of the refugees who they helped rescue, describe their harrowing journey across Nazi-occupied territory on their way to safety in England.

Some of the children who were part of Martha Sharp’s emigration project describe their experiences as refugees leaving Europe for America during World War II.