William Perl's Book Report

William R. Perl was chosen as our subject because of his direct correlation to the theme and the abundance of information that we had available. To begin the selection process, each group member listed their possible ideas. Then we discussed each one and decided on Perl. One of our group-members is the grandchild of Perl, so she had primary sources and knew a lot of information about the subject before we began researching. As we researched, we began to develop opinions and ideas, and decided on a thesis that Perl’s rescues, although illegal, were justified by the high death rate of the holocaust, the psychological damage, and the lack of space granted to Jews.
Three of us read books written by Perl, and the other two read books about other Zionists at the time, or other rescue attempts from the Holocaust. We were able to look at primary source documents such as his passport marked with a J, which is included in our exhibit. Overall, we relied on information from his books as well as the other books we read. When choosing books, we wanted to have other opinions available, so we read books by David Ben-Gurion, who had opposing views on how to rescue Jews from the Holocaust and wanted to go about everything in a completely
legal manner, and a book about multiple Holocaust rescues. We shared documents with research and began brainstorming methods of displaying information. From there, we divided other responsibilities in the construction of our presentation and set deadlines for the completion of certain aspects of our project.
Choosing a category was fairly easy for our group. The skill set of our group, in construction or design, fit well into the exhibit board category. One group member built our board out of foam core and a wooden frame on a lazy susan, based on the design of a different member who also built the pedestal. Another group member spray painted the board grey, and a fourth painted our title, צפּ אל פי, which is Hebrew for “In Spite of Everything.” Four of us were able to get together and get the information onto the board, which included tea stained paper.
Perl took a stand against the Jewish establishment and the Nazi’s in his rescues.
Many Jews at the time wanted to go about things in a legal manner, but Perl saw the speed of events happening, and acted against the establishment to get people out of their countries before a legal decision was made. He also took a stand against the Nazi’s, opposing their power over the Jews by not allowing them to take and kill Jews without a fight. Perl had a large impact on 40,000 thousand lives, through giving them the opportunity to survive a dangerous time. In history, Perl impacted the death rates of the Holocaust, and the success of Adolf’s campaign. Perl’s stand against the Nazi’s and the Jewish establishment was significant to many and to history
itself.