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They also shared another trait: Ordinariness. Christopher R. Browning, a professor of history at UNC-Chapel Hill who wrote the foreword to Klempner's book, said the rescuers "did not stick out in society. Their behavior was not predictable."

Still, there was nothing ordinary about what they did.

Klempner said all the rescuers learned habits of altruistic behavior from their parents. Indeed, many of the rescuers had siblings or parents who were working to shelter Jews too.

The rescuers were independent-minded. They didn't care what other people thought and weren't too concerned with social status or achievement.

Finally, the rescuers were people of action who listened to their hearts and didn't let their heads interfere.

"Often they told me that if they had thought too much about what they were doing, they might have talked themselves out of it," Klempner wrote. "Not that reasoned determination didn't sometimes play a part, but so did sheer courage."

Klempner said he has learned from the rescuers to be less uptight about his career and more open to opportunities to help others. He and his wife, Cara Siano, whom he met while studying at UNC, moved to Costa Rica in 2001. There, he is working on a new book and does freelance journalism and editing.

But he has also found a new sideline: health education. Together with his wife, who has a master's degree in public health, he counsels people on diet and lifestyle and teaches them about nutrition and alternative medicine -- something he said many Costa Ricans know little about.

Half jokingly, he added, "I'm basically the town healer."

His lifestyle, he said, is an outgrowth of the influence the rescuers had on him. Today, only five of the rescuers Klempner interviewed are still living.

The majority of the Dutch people cooperated with the Nazi occupiers. About 60,000 Dutch citizens -- or fewer than 1 percent -- resisted the Nazis. Of those, an even smaller fraction dared to rescue Jews.

That impressed Klempner, because at least initially, the rescuers had no one to guide them.

"Until you yourself made the decision to take action, you didn't meet other people who took action," Klempner said. "In the Netherlands, it was a solitary choice."

Or, as he wrote, a tug of the heart.

Clara Dijkstra of Amsterdam, who took in a Jewish girl during the war, lent Klempner the title of his book.

"Why did you help?" Klempner asked her.

"It was only human," she is quoted as saying.

"But so many others did nothing."

"Well, you know, the heart has reasons."

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