Handmade brass ornaments, a brass and glass coffee table, a music box, a plaque of the Ten Commandments laid out on mother-of-pearl, and pictures of Syrian-Jewish families with daughters named Judy, are all gifts from the families she helped save.

It has been about six years since she took out her last family on Sept. 11, 2001, and almost 10 years since Harold Troper, author and professor in the department of theory and policy studies at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), wrote The Ransomed of God, the story of how Feld Carr navigated the escape of Syrian Jews.

That book was re-released in soft cover this fall with a new name, The Rescuer, and a new preface, in which he writes that after giving a talk when the book was first released, a man asked him which parts of the book were true and which were Troper’s invention.

He told the man that everything was true, Troper writes, but admits that he, too, was “more than a little skeptical” when Feld Carr approached him about writing a book on that part of Syrian history.

Feld Carr, who was awarded the Order of Canada in 2001, said that she couldn’t blame Troper for his initial skepticism  because she, too, would have had trouble believing the story of how a Canadian Jewish woman born and raised in Sudbury, Ont., and now a wife and mother of a blended family of six children – she married Toronto lawyer Donald Carr after her first husband, Dr. Ronald Feld, died – could have masterminded such a plan.

That is one of the reasons, she said, that she applauds the rerelease of the book. “It is important for a new generation to learn that one person can help change the world.

“[The rerelease] is also important because a lot of countries are now looking at Syria as a catalyst in terms of terrorism, and it is still a police state. We need to know how Syria treated its Jews then, because no one understands how Syria treats its minorities now,” she said.

The entire escape plan was an amazing secret, said Feld Carr. “It was entirely private, and donations were by word of mouth. I didn’t go to meetings or answer to a board of directors. People knew that Jews appeared, but no one ever spoke about how they got there.

“I didn’t want a public awareness. I knew that once it got on the news the whole thing would be finished.”

She was also constantly aware of the danger she was in. “I was trying to infiltrate a country with a steel door. I never offered my help, and I never contacted anyone. They had to find me. Most had tried and tried to get out, and when all else failed, they often heard about Mrs. Judy. Sometimes the whole thing took three years.”

She has not kept up with any of the families she helped, she said, “because they have their new lives to live. I did it and it’s over. I remember every single one, though, and sometimes I hear about them through the grapevine.”

People had “amazing” trust in her, said Feld Carr, who appeared at the Jewish Book Fair last week when Troper spoke about the book. “For instance, I would have the chance to get one child out of Syria, and the parents had eight hours to choose which one. Without knowing me or ever seeing me, they trusted me with their child. They didn’t know if they’d ever see him again.”

The book, she says, is not a biography. “It is not my life story. It is the story of those people, and the people that made it happen.”

There is a whole new generation of people being born since her mission began, she said. “The first boy I got out now has two sons in the Israeli army.”

She still wonders how it all happened. “I began by sending Hebrew books to Syria. If you would have told me then that I would start helping Jews escape, I would have called you mad. How is it possible that a fur trader’s daughter with a degree in musicology could do this?”