WILPF’s Detroit branch continued its annual donation of Jane Addams Peace Association award–winning books to the children’s department of the Detroit Main Library. WILPF members presented six titles, including Safiyyah’s War, by Hiba Noor Khan, to librarians Susie Hartings and Halima Davis on Jane Addams’s birthday, Sept. 6, 2025.
Safiyyah’s War is based on the true story of how Muslims in the Grand Mosque of Paris saved hundreds of Jews during World War II. The friendship between Safiyyah, a Muslim, and her best friend, Isabelle, a Jew, is the background for this inspiring historical fiction about neighbors in danger.
The Detroit branch gave these peace education books in honor of Helga Herz (1912–2010), an activist with the Detroit branch of WILPF, a volunteer at the Wayne State University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, and a librarian at the Detroit Library for 30 years. She also supported the American Friends Service Committee and was an ardent anti-nuclear activist. Her mother, Alice Herz, immolated herself in Detroit to protest the Vietnam War in 1965.
The Detroit branch’s donations of the award-winning books began under Helga’s direction. The Detroit Library’s main branch is now home to dozens of these children’s books, dating to 1953, the first year of the Jane Addams Peace Association book awards. Learn more about Helga and Alice’s peace journey in this video.
