"When hundreds of Polish rabbis and yeshiva students were forced to flee to Lithuania in the wake of the outbreak of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland, Orthodox rabbis in the United States responded by establishing a special rescue committee on their behalf called the Emergency Committee for War-Torn Yeshivoth.

This committee, which later became known (by its Hebrew name) as the Vaad-ha-Hatzala Rescue Committee emerged as the official rescue and relief agency of American Orthodox Jewry during the Holocaust.".

"This book records the history of the Vaad-ha-Hatzala, which initially focused exclusively on the rescue of rabbis and yeshiva students, but later expanded its efforts to include all jews threatened by the Nazis regardless of their religiosity or affiliation. During World War II, the Vaad was able to help rescue hundreds of refugee Torah scholars, most of whom escaped to safety via the Far East, as well as thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe."--BOOK JACKET.