Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946 [Hardcover]

Debórah Dwork (Author), Robert Jan van Pelt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 2009

A bold, groundbreaking work that provides the definitive answer to the persistent question: Why didn’t more Jews flee Nazi Europe?

Flight from the Reich is a story about people at a time of crisis. As persecution, war, and deportation savaged their communities, Jews tried to flee Nazi Europe through legal and clandestine routes. In their multifaceted tale of Jewish refugees during and after the Nazi era, Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt braid the private and public realms, personal memory and official history. They probe the challenges faced by German Jewish refugees; the dispute among the Swiss on allowing Jews to cross their border; the dangers braved by covert guides who helped the hunted out of occupied France; and the creation of postwar displaced person camps, which have much to tell us about refugee camps today. Grounded in archival research throughout Europe and America, hundreds of oral histories, and thousands of newly discovered letters, Flight from the Reich shows how the lives of people thread together to form history.

50 photos; 2 maps

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tracking the plight of refugee Jews during and after the Nazi era, the authors of Auschwitz offer a comprehensive survey of various countries' responses to the refugee crisis and their often self-serving motives America, fearing immigrants would become public charges, required financial affidavits from American family or friends, which proved insurmountable for most European Jews. Britain granted visas to Jews of international repute, such as Sigmund Freud, but to only 50 Jews with licenses to practice medicine and 14,000 Jewish women willing to work as domestic servants. Eager to increase its white population, a racist Dominican Republic allowed healthy young refugees from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia to work on large-scale agricultural colonies. Internment camps in the Soviet Union offered a chance for survival while detention camps in France were conduits to the concentration camps and death. The establishment of the state of Israel resolved postwar Jewish refugee problems but ironically triggered an immediate Jewish refugee flood from Muslim countries. Although well researched and written, this work's specialized focus deems it more appropriate for academics and others with a special interest in the Holocaust or refugee policy. 50 photos, 2 maps. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Most Holocaust studies understandably focus on the plight of the victims in death camps and those who suffered the outrages committed by special SS units as the Wehrmacht rampaged across Eastern Europe. Here, the authors shed light on Jews who attempted to escape the fate that their tormentors planned. Beginning with the Nazi ascension to power in 1933, many German Jews saw the writing on the wall. Their emigration was surprisingly orderly, and was facilitated by “cooperative” German officials. The fortunate ones found refuge in Britain, the U.S., and Palestine. Others, like the family of Anne Frank, fled to soon-to-be occupied nations, including the Netherlands and France. As Dwork and van Pelt chillingly recount, orderly emigration soon gave way to panicky flight as Nazi persecution increased and windows closed in various nations that had seemed receptive. There are heroes here, including Gentiles who sheltered and smuggled Jews, and villains who knowingly denied Jews a safe haven and condemned them to certain extinction. This is an excellent examination of a rarely emphasized aspect of the Holocaust. --Jay Freeman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition edition (April 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393062295
• ISBN-13: 978-0393062298
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #863,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic must read, May 29, 2009

By 

M. Hyman "Artist at large" (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946 (Hardcover)

This is one of those rare, beautifully written books where you learn something new on each page, and, despite the tragic subject matter, can't wait for the next page. Normally I don't like to take hardcover books on a plane, but I started it before a trip and couldn't put it down.

I have read many books about the Holocaust, and along with the Black Book and Fear, view this as a critical book to help one's broader understanding of what happened.

This book is different than the many other books on the Holocaust that I have read, in that it focuses not on what happened to those who perished as the hands of the fascists, but what happened to those who tried to escape from the ever expanding reach of the Nazis as they conquered Europe.

Rather than taking a dry approach, it illuminates the history through the lives of individuals, so you are able to appreciate and understand the human tragedy and horror of the situation, as well as the overall political climate and history.

This does not mean that the book is lightweight. It is scholarly, with endless footnotes and references, and a detailed view of the politics and the politicians, but it is approachable and human and fascinating throughout.

We all too readily whitewash history, as the victors, to view the Holocaust as being evil (Nazis) and good (Allies), but this book shows the broad anti-semitism that was omnipresent on both sides. It shows how in the early phases, the Nazis tried to export the Jews to other countries, none of whom (including the US, England and France) would accept them, and instead actively prevented Jews from escaping from certain death. And it shows how the politics and situation on the ground changed throughout the pre-war and war.

It also shows the extremely positive role the Soviet Union, despite its latent anti-semitism, played in saving the lives of many Jews, even though many were subsequently swallowed up by the Gulag. (Read Figues for more.)

In addition to showing the various paths taken to escape, some successful, some not, it also shows the overall impact of the Holocaust on those who did escape.

Altogether, a must read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary scholarship, immensely thrillingly readable, July 5, 2009

By 

shanarufus (Asheville, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946 (Hardcover)

I had read Children with a Star many many years ago and remember how excited I was: this was new history being written, history being written about a subject not tackled until Dwork did it--specifically the children. And again, now, she takes a 13 year history and turns it on its side to present a facet that has not been written about before in such extraordinary and reader-accessible detail.

I knew about Sugihara and the 2000 transit visas this compassionate Japanese man gave to people. I knew about Shanghai, had read a wonderful memoir plus saw Shanghai Ghetto and Port of Last Resort. I knew about the kinder transports. I knew about Catholic nuns hiding Jewish children, in Chabannes for example. I knew about Denmark, and even Bulgaria (but that was anti-Nazi, not pro-Jewish). But Dwork adds to this the passeurs, the underground railroads that existed in several countries, the constantly-changing regulations year by year and even month by month within Germany and Austria and other countries overrun by the Nazis.

It amazes me to write this next sentence: The Final Solution as a linguistic term is based on attempts to force Jews out of Germany and the greater Reich--to solve the Jewish question. And for many reasons these attempts failed. The main reason, of course, is that no countries wanted these people, these penniless refugees, stateless, surely bound to be dependent. The annihilation machine in the death camps was the result of all other attempted/failed solutions to make Europe judenrein was the final solution.

Reading this was a thrilling experience. I have read hundreds of Holocaust-related histories, essays, memoirs, novels, plays, and seen at least a hundred documentary and fiction films. And this book was so thrilling because it gave me so much new insight and knowledge.

I can't rave enough. Extraordinary scholarship--highly readable, the best that history writing can be.

4.0 out of 5 stars Wow--facts I didn't know about!, December 12, 2009

By 

D. S. BELL - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933-1946 (Hardcover)

This book is one that you need to sit down with and contemplate--While reading, I realized that I lived through most of this happening but was unaware of it. It makes one very aware of what happened and the necessity of really "knowing" what is going on around you from day to day. It is important that we remember that the "Holocost" did happen and do our part so that it won't happen again. We need to pray for our nation to be a good example to other countries and try to work out problems that our world is in at this particular time in life.