Dr. Kersten was dedicated to the saving of lives, at substantial risk to his life, in a crushing environment in Berlin characterized by gross inhumanity, horrendous violence against whole peoples, and the flagrant conduct of a tragic and unnecessary war that led to the atrocious loss of life of millions of persons throughout Europe and beyond. The World Jewish Congress estimates that through Dr. Kersten’s valiant efforts, some 65,000 Jewish lives were spared from the Nazis.
Dr. Kersten’s self-sacrificing and courageous acts on behalf of Jews, and citizens of the Netherlands and Finland, are a bright light of hope and virtue shining in the darkness of Europe at war.
Sincerely,
Nicolaas Wilhemus Posthumus,
Amsterdam
The Nobel Peace Prize of 1957 was awarded to Lester B. Pearson of Canada.
Felix Kersten’s nomination for inclusion in the list of The Righteous Among the Gentiles in the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remebrance Center in Jerusalem was rejected because of allegations made by a prominent Swedish aristocrat, Count Bernadotte, that Kersten had, in fact, been a Nazi and an accomplice in Himmler’s crimes against humanity. The charges were to be proven as false in 1949 by a special commission of the Dutch Institute of War Documentation headed by Dr. N.W. Posthumus. Thus, Yad Vashem had to decide on the basis of conflicting evidence. It judged that Kersten’s own testimony of his rescue operations, The Kersten Memoirs, were not sufficiently reliable.
Felix Kersten died in Stockholm of heart disease in 1960 at age 61.
Algot Niska died of a brain tumor in Helsinki in 1954 at age 66.
Hanne Hirsch, on whom the character of Hannah Hirtschel is based, moved to the new nation of Israel in 1950.
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
Dear reader,
Thank you for the honor you bestow on me by reading this book. Every writer wants a reader.
The novel you have just read is not a volume of history, but a work of fiction. To be sure, it does depict many characters who were actual historical personages: Algot Niska, Felix Kersten, Auguste Diehn, Rudolf Brandt, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Walter Schellenberg, Toivo Horelli, Rolf Witting, and several others. That list includes Heinrich Himmler, of course.
Other characters are purely fictional.
Likewise, the plot is based on actual historical events. Many of the conversations between characters are actual direct quotes from the memoirs of Kersten and Niska, and several other sources. This is true particularly in the case of the dialogue between Felix Kersten and his patient Heinrich Himmler. Information about these memoirs and other sources to which I referred in my research are listed at the end of this volume.
Nonetheless, the majority of events and most of the dialogue depicted in this novel are either pure inventions of my imagination, or are adapted, enhanced, or otherwise modified in the service of the advancement of the plot and the development of the characters.
I say this because I believe there is a substantive difference between historical facts, on the one hand, and the kind of literary truth that a work of fiction pursues.
Being a historical novel, therefore, this work is not an accurate or detailed biography of the “real” people who populate this book, nor an exact record of the history of events between 1938 and 1945, and should not be mistaken for such.
Jack A. Saarela
Wyncote, PA
Acknowledgments
The popular notion, perhaps, of the process of writing a book, especially a novel, is that the author sequesters himself or herself in a quiet, isolated space somewhere for an extended period of time, sits at his or her computer keyboard, and comes back into the light and the company of other humans with a finished manuscript. There’s something heroic about such a notion. It is an inaccurate one, however, according to the testimony of most writers, including this one.
This novel is the product of many minds. The seeds of the story were planted initially in my own mind and imagination by my reading the memoirs of the two principal characters, Felix Kersten and Algot Niska. I also performed the imaginative reworking and telling of their story on paper. However, editor Karen Hodges Miller served as a kind of midwife in the birth of the novel with whose expert and patient guidance the telling of the story was rendered more accurate, appealing to the reader, and satisfying to the writer.
Even before chapters were submitted to Karen, beta-readers Kathy Weidner, Marty Weiss, Peter Clark, Jose Cedillos, and my wife, Diane Saarela, were invaluable in detecting inconsistencies in the presentation of the plot, lapses in typing, and weaknesses in the writing as well as strengths. They never failed to be frank and encouraging.
Rabbi Ruth Sandberg of Gratz College was kind enough to give expert advice concerning the Jewish prayers. Eric Labacz enhanced the book by telling the story through his stunning and creative design of the cover. Vivian Fransen made sure the reader didn’t have to plow through spelling and typing errors. Albert Glenn flattered me with his photo portrait of me that appears on the back cover.
Librarian and published author Marietta Levinson and business writer Marty Weiss did a read-through of the final manuscript before publication and kindly wrote positive reviews.
My wife, Diane, was wholeheartedly forebearing of my sometime neglect of household duties as I dedicated time and energy to this project. I am grateful for her protection of the integrity of my almost religious “writing time” each afternoon for almost two years.
RESOURCES
Below are listed some of the many resources consulted for this novel.
Books
Bohjakian, Chris. Skeletons at the Feast. New York. Three Rivers Press. 2009.
Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002
Kersten, Felix, The Kersten Memoirs 1940-1945. New York: The McMillan Co, 1957
Kessel, Joseph, The Man with the Miraculous Hands. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004
Manvell, Roger and Fraenkel, Heinrich, Heinrich Himmler: The Sinister Life of the Head of the SS and Gestapo. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2007
Niska, Algot, Over Green Borders: The Memoirs of Algot Niska. New York: Vantage Press, 1955
Rautakallio, Hannu, Finland and the Holocaust: The Rescue of Finland’s Jews. New York: Holocaust Library, 1987
Shirer, William, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960
Waller, John H., The Devil’s Doctor: Felix Kersten and the Secret Plot to Turn Himmler Against Hitler. New York. John Wiley & Sons, 2002
Articles
“Algot Niska.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algoth_Niska
“Felix Kersten.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Kersten
“Heinrich Himmler.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler
“Military History of Finland During the Second World War Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Finland_during_World_War_II
“Winter War.” Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War
“Finland and Germany in World War II: Brothers-in-Arms.” Helsingin Sanomat www.hs.fi/english/article/Finland+Germany+in+WWII.
“The Strange Case of Himmler’s Dr. Felix Kersten and Count Bernadotte.” Commentary https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-strange-case-of-himmlers-doctorfelix-kersten-and-count-bernadotte/
Film
“Heinrich Himmler: The Decent One.” Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkdvWmMczcg
“Himmler’s Doctor.” Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b48W-Fz0eo&t=28s
About the Author
Jack Saarala was born in Finland and later emigrated to Toronto, Canada. He studied at Yale Divinity School and in 1981 moved to Florida. He currently lives in Wyncote, PA.
He and his wife, Diane, are the grateful parents of two adult sons: Luke, of Wyncote, PA, and Jesse, of Gainesville, FL.
Jack remains a Canadian citiz
en, but cheers for the Finnish ice hockey teams in the Olympics and international tournaments, even if Canada is the opponent.
In June 2015, he retired after over 40 years as a Lutheran clergyman. Since retirement, his viewpoint has changed from scanning the environment for sermon material to seeing the world as a novelist. He’d always wanted to write one since reading The Great Gatsby in high school and then studying English literature at the University of Toronto. So he did write one. In October 2016, his immigration novel, Beginning Again at Zero, was self-published at Lulu Press. His second, Accidental Saviors, is published by Can’t Put It Down Books.
Accidental Saviors Page 29