Author Talk: Richard Hurowitz on the Wingate Prize Nominee, ‘In the Garden of the Righteous’

Event Details

Richard Hurowitz discusses his Wingate Prize nominee, In the Garden of the Righteous, with Reverend Vanessa Rose. The powerfully illuminating and inspiring profiles that compose this unforgettable book pay tribute to the incredible deeds of the Righteous Among the Nations, little-known heroes who saved countless lives during the Holocaust.

Less than a century ago, World War II took the lives of more than 50 million people. More than six million of them were systematically exterminated through crimes of such enormity that a new name to describe the horror was coined: the Holocaust. Yet, amid such darkness, there were glimmers of light — courageous individuals who risked everything to save those hunted by the Nazis. Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, has recognized more than 27,000 individuals as “Righteous Among the Nations” — non-Jewish people such as Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler who risked their lives to save their persecuted neighbors.

Today, as bigotry and intolerance and the threats of fascism and authoritarianism are ascendent once again, these heroes’ little-known stories — among the most remarkable in human history — resonate powerfully. Hurowitz wonderfully captures some of their stories in his book.

Community Partners: The Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County and The Jewish Book Council

About In the Garden of the Righteous

In the Garden of the Righteous was published by HarperCollins and was nominated for the Wingate Prize, given annually to the best book, fiction or nonfiction, to convey the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.

Hurowitz's book chronicles extraordinary acts at a time when the moral choices were stark, the threat immense, and the passive apathy of millions predominated. Deeply researched and astonishingly moving, it focuses on 10 remarkable stories, including that of the circus ringmaster Adolf Althoff and his wife Maria, the Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Italian cycling champion Gino Bartali, the Polish social worker Irena Sendler, and the Japanese spy Chinue Sugihara, who provided hiding places, participated in underground networks, refused to betray their neighbors, and secured safe passage. They repeatedly defied authorities and risked their lives, their livelihoods, and their families to save the helpless and the persecuted. In the Garden of the Righteous is a testament to their kindness and courage.

“In the Garden of the Righteous brilliantly describes how in the midst of the brutality of the Holocaust and the collaboration, acquiescence and passivity of millions, there were people who risked their lives to save others out of a sense of shared humanity. This book is more timely than ever.”—Stuart E. Eizenstat, author of Imperfect Justice: Looted Assets, Slave Labor, and the Unfinished Business of World War II

About the Author

Richard Hurowitz is a writer, investor, and the publisher of The Octavian Report, the magazine of ideas. He is the chief executive officer of Octavian and Company LLC, an investment firm. Richard’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, the Los Angeles Times, Time, the Daily Beast, the Boston Globe, USA Today, CNBC, the Weekly Standard, History Today, and the Jerusalem Post.

Previously, Richard was the founder and chief investment officer of Octavian Advisors, an international special situations and distressed investment fund which managed approximately $1.4 billion and which was sold to the private equity firm TPG. He previously served as a member of the board of directors of EI Towers SpA, the Italian broadcast towers company, Head NV, the Austrian sporting goods business, and of Octavian Maritime, a cargo shipping concern, where he was chairman. He also has served as a strategic advisor to Rothschild & Company, as a strategic advisor to Electrum Holdings, and as a special advisor to TPG Sixth Street Partners.

Richard serves on the governing board of the Yale University Art Gallery. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a nonresident senior fellow of the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council. He was a co-founder and president of the Renew Democracy Initiative, an organization dedicated to defending liberal democracy. He received his BA in history from Yale, graduating in three years, magna cum laude and with distinction, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Alpha Theta. He earned a JD from Columbia University School of Law, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and the editor-in-chief of the Columbia/VLA Journal of Law & the Arts.

About the Moderator

The Rev. Vanessa Rose is the senior pastor of First Church Congregational of Fairfield, UCC. She has served First Church since 2013, first as the minister of children and families and then as the associate pastor. She was called by the congregation to be their senior pastor in 2022, the first woman in the role in the congregation’s history, which began in 1639. Vanessa believes the church is at its best when it proclaims the message of God's love for all people. She is committed to the church’s legacy of service, being “open and affirming,” and being a place of interfaith relationship building. She considers hospitality to be a spiritual practice, and under her leadership, First Church is reinvigorating its identity as the town’s original Meetinghouse, a place where the wider community gathers. This effort has led to First Church being included in Fairfield’s new Arts and Culture district.

Vanessa is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and Boston College. She serves on the board of Operation Hope and the Town of Fairfield's Holocaust Commemoration Committee.