Escape Through The Pyrenees

Author : Lisa Fittko
Publisher : Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 182 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book Escape Through the Pyrenees written by Lisa Fittko and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2020-11-04 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “This memoir documents the fate of German expatriates, Jews, antifascists and socialists before and immediately following France’s defeat in World War II. Escape Through the Pyrenees is set in a concentration camp called Gurs and in the various border checkpoints in southern France, along the coast and in the Pyrenees. Fascism is shown not to be a monopoly of any people. If the Germans excelled at it, Lisa Fittko shows, many French officials occasionally outdid them. Against a backdrop of chaos as refugees flee the Gestapo, the gap between law and any true code of honor becomes glaringly evident. Ms. Fittko and her husband, Hans, were socialists, and their commitment to sharing impelled them to risk their lives to lead refugees, including the critic Walter Benjamin, over the Pyrenees to Spain. The author takes delight in describing the people she met — the 70-year-old female hobo, for example, whom Ms. Fittko encountered in the death ward of a French hospital and who read Baudelaire and sang the Marseillaise at the top of her voice. This woman was a rebel not against fascism but against institutionalization of any sort. It is in portraits like this that Escape Through the Pyrenees, well translated from the German by David Koblick, transcends the documentary formula and captures the poetry of human character.” — Freema Gottlieb, The New York Times “[A] worthy account of French wartime cowardice and xenophobia and of the brave souls who defied officialdom.” — Publishers Weekly “Lisa Fittko had no room for self-pity. Their campaigns against terror were pure struggles; [her] accounts, even allowing for the retouching of memory, are pure too.” — Smithsonian “[T]his memoir [...] is unique in the literature of the resistance... the book truly reads as a suspense novel... The author made a valuable contribution to the literature of the persecuted in World War II.” — Vera Laska, International Journal on World Peace “[T]he story of a little-known dimension of the fight against Hitler.” — Shofar “[A] gripping book.” — Alfred G. Frei, The Journal of Modern History

Author : Edward Stourton
Publisher : Open Road Media
ISBN 13 : 1504087011
Total Pages : 364 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Cruel Crossing written by Edward Stourton and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chronicle of the perilous European mountain escape route used during World War II, with epic stories from survivors and their families. After the Nazi invasion of Belgium in 1940, an underground network was established to help British servicemen escape German-occupied Europe. As the war progressed, others began using the secret route as well, traveling to the south of France, over the Pyrenees mountains, and into neutral Spain. The Chemin de la Liberté runs forty miles across the central Pyrenees. Since 1994, it has been hiked each July to commemorate those who made the courageous journey during the Nazi occupation of France. BBC Radio presenter Edward Stourton made the trek in 2011, and from his fellow hikers, he uncovered amazing stories of wartime bravery and perseverance. In Cruel Crossing, Stourton draws on interviews with survivors, as well as family members of those who were there, to paint a history of this little-known aspect of World War II. It is colored by tales of hardship from soldiers trapped behind enemy lines, persecuted Jews fleeing Hitler and Vichy France, and bold resistance fighters aiding their escape. There are scrambles across rooftops in the dead of night, drops from speeding trains, treachery, murder, romance, and of course, heroism. These personal stories offer a dramatic and moving trip through the past, preserving the memories of those who endured so much to gain back their freedom. Praise for Cruel Crossing “Stourton writes evocatively and with sensitivity of the people who made the arduous trek. . . . An engaging collection of tales.” —Daily Express “In Mr. Stourton’s hands, the Pyrenees become a grim amphitheatre for heroism and betrayal, collusion and rebellion. . . . Cruel Crossing recaptures much of the adventure and the fun, as well as the horror and the bitterness, as it brilliantly conjures up the voices of the past.” —Country Life “Heart-breaking and breath-taking . . . thoroughly moving and very readable.” —Simon Mawer, author of The Glass Room “An important book packed with poignant stories, remarkable characters and uncomfortable truths.” —Clare Mulley, author of The Spy Who Loved

Author : Jean-Luc E. Cartron
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1640121757
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book So Close to Freedom written by Jean-Luc E. Cartron and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II many escape-line organizations contributed to the Allied cause by funneling hundreds of servicemen trapped behind enemy lines out of occupied Europe. As the Germans tightened their noose around the escape lines and infiltrated them, the risk of discovery only grew for the servicemen who, in ever-increasing numbers, needed safe passage across the Pyrenees. In early 1944 two important escape-line organizations operated in Toulouse in southwestern France, handing over many fugitives to French passeur Jean-Louis Bazerque ("Charbonnier"). Along with several of his successful missions, Charbonnier's only failure as a passeur is recounted in gripping detail in So Close to Freedom. This riveting story recounts how Charbonnier tried to guide a large group of fugitives--most of them downed Allied airmen, along with a French priest, two doctors, a Belgian Olympic skater, and others--to freedom across the Pyrenees. Tragically, they were discovered by German mountain troopers just shy of the Spanish border. Jean-Luc E. Cartron offers the first detailed account of what happened, showing how Charbonnier operated, his ties with "the Françoise" (previously "Pat O'Leary") escape-line organization, and how the group was betrayed and by whom. So Close to Freedom sheds light not only on the complex and precarious work of escape lines but also on the concrete, nerve-racking experiences of the airmen and those helping them. It shows the desperation of all those seeking passage to Spain, the myriad dangers they faced, and the lengths they would go to in order to survive.

Author : John Carr
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1643138863
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Escape from the Ghetto written by John Carr and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This captivating true story of one boy's flight across Europe to escape the Nazis is a tale of extraordinary courage, incredible adventure, and the relentless pursuit of freedom in the face of insurmountable challenges. In early 1940 Chaim Herszman was locked in to the Lódz Ghetto in Poland. Hungry, fearless, and determined, Chaim goes on scavenging missions outside the wire fence—where one day he is forced to kill a Nazi guard to protect his secret. That moment changes the course of his life and sets him on an unbelievable adventure across enemy lines. Chaim avoids grenade and rifle fire on the Russian border, shelters with a German family in the Rhineland, falls in love in occupied France, is captured on a mountain pass in Spain, gets interrogated as a potential Nazi spy in Britain, and eventually fights for everything he believes in as part of the British Army. He protects his life by posing as an Aryan boy with a crucifix around his neck, and fights for his life through terrible and astonishing circumstances. Escape from the Ghetto is about a normal boy who faced extermination by the Nazis in the ghetto and a Nazi deathcamp, and the extraordinary life he led in avoiding that fate. It's a bittersweet story about epic hope, beauty amidst horror, and the triumph of the human spirit.

Author : Jay Parini
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0525562761
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Benjamin's Crossing written by Jay Parini and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed and now-classic biographical novel of Walter Benjamin's last days--adapted into screenplay by Jay Parini. It is 1940. For the past decade, Walter Benjamin--the German-Jewish critic and philosopher--has been writing his masterpiece in a library in Paris, a city he loves. Now Nazi tanks have overrun the suburbs, and Benjamin is forced to flee. With a battered briefcase that contains his precious manuscript of a thousand handwritten pages, he sets off for the border and is led by chance to a young anti-Nazi who is taking Jews and other refugees over the Pyrenees into Spain, where they may (with luck) make their way to freedom in Portugal or South America. Beloved biographical novelist Jay Parini's thrilling tale of escape is beautifully interwoven with vignettes of Benjamin's complex, cosmopolitan past: his privileged childhood in Berlin, his years with the German Youth Movement, his university days. His close friendship with Gershom Scholem, the eminent scholar of Jewish mysticism, and many other well-known artists and intellectuals who were part of Benjamin's intimate circle between the two world wars. Part tragedy, part dark comedy, this sharply realized historical novel tells one of the great and most moving peripheral stories of the Holocaust.

Author : Lisa Fittko
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780810111301
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Solidarity and Treason written by Lisa Fittko and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascism. In 1986, almost fifty years after the National Socialist government had denied Lisa Fittko her German citizenship, she was awarded the Distinguished Medal of Merit, First Class, by the government of the Federal Republic. In her acceptance, she pointed out that we know too little about the Resistance. Solidarity and Treason is an illuminating historical document and a remarkable testament of personal strength and courage.

Author : Terry Cudbird
Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
ISBN 13 : 1908493712
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Walking the Hexagon written by Terry Cudbird and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why would a man retire from his job and take off on a unique 4,000-mile walk around France? What possessed him to wear out his sixty-year-old hips and knees when he could spend a comfortable retirement at home? In this fascinating book Terry Cudbird reveals the obsession which is long distance walking--the intoxicating freedom to go where you want, the escape from the complications and paraphernalia of everyday life, the unpredictable encounters. His itinerary covered the six sides of the French hexagon. In a year's walking he passed through the Pyrenees, the Languedoc, Provence, the Alps, the Jura, Alsace, Lorraine, Picardy, Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine. En route he discovered the astonishing variety of France's regions; their culture, history, languages, architecture and food. He passed through cities and hamlets, idyllic mountains and bleak plains, the heat of Le Midi and the cold of Le Nord. The author relates the highs and lows of a sometimes gruelling trek: the dramatic changes in landscape, the unexpected acts of kindness but also the guard dogs, snorers in hikers' refuges, storms, man-eating insects, blisters, exhausted limbs, lack of water and a rucksack which was always too heavy. Most important, he met hundreds of French people, many with an unusual outlook on life and interesting stories to tell: hermits, hippies, pilgrims, monks and farmers to name but a few. He made some lasting friends. Terry Cudbird's journey is rich in incident and observation. It is also, in part, the story of an individual coming to terms with his parents' old age and growing dementia. Through walking he finds not only a source of endless new horizons but also the means of accepting the past and its loss. This book will be of interest to walkers, lovers of France and anyone who has ever dreamt of encountering real adventures not far from home.

Author : Scott Goodall
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780954991005
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Freedom Trail written by Scott Goodall and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : George Watt
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 9780813131498
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Escape from Hitler's Europe written by George Watt and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Leo Bretholz
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Leap Into Darkness written by Leo Bretholz and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1999-09-14 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A harrowing, action-packed account of the author's series of audacious escapes from the Nazis' Final Solution--"riveting...a fascinating and moving piece of history" (Library Journal). Young Leo Bretholz survived the Holocaust by escaping from the Nazis (and others) not once, but seven times during his almost seven-year ordeal crisscrossing war-torn Europe. He leaped from trains, outran police, and hid in attics, cellars, anywhere that offered a few more seconds of safety. First he swam the River Sauer at the German-Belgian border. Later he climbed the Alps on feet so battered they froze to his socks--only to be turned back at the Swiss border. He crawled out from under the barbed wire of a French holding camp, and hid in a village in the Pyrenees while gendarmes searched it. And in the dark hours of one November morning, he escaped from a train bound for Auschwitz. Leap into Darkness is the sweeping memoir of one Jewish boy's survival, and of the family and the world he left behind.