Escape Through the Pyrenees - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Escape Through the Pyrenees write by Lisa Fittko. This book was released on 2000. Escape Through the Pyrenees available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Story of a high school teacher whose students (underprivileged and Hispanic) have set standards in mathematics American education. A gripping memoir of German-Jewish leftist Fittko's life as an alien her path from concentration camp internee to underground rescue operative (the great philosopher and was one of many whom she and her comrades saved). Translated from the German edition of 1985 (Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich). Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Cruel Crossing
Cruel Crossing - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Cruel Crossing write by Edward Stourton. This book was released on 2023-11-07. Cruel Crossing available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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
Escape Through the Pyrenees
Escape Through the Pyrenees - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Escape Through the Pyrenees write by Lisa Fittko. This book was released on 2020-11-04. Escape Through the Pyrenees available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. “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
So Close to Freedom
So Close to Freedom - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook So Close to Freedom write by Jean-Luc E. Cartron. This book was released on 2019-04-01. So Close to Freedom available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
Escape from the Ghetto
Escape from the Ghetto - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Escape from the Ghetto write by John Carr. This book was released on 2022-04-05. Escape from the Ghetto available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. 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.
