Motivation in Holocaust rescue: the case of Jan Zwartendijk in Lithuania, 1940

Examines the role of Dutch businessman Jan Zwartendijk who, based in Lithuania in 1940, helped many Polish Jews who had sought refuge in that country to escape the approaching Nazis. Motivated not by religious sentiment but rather by pure humanitarianism, Zwartendijk was later dubbed one of the "Righteous Among Nations." The complex wartime situation in Lithuania, in which Soviet, Jewish, Dutch, Japanese and Lithuanian interest intersected, is considered in some detail.