Customer Reviews

The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World

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I found this book quite interesting although not very well written. I am also less than happy with some of choices made by the author - why these nine are featured when some of them (A. Korda, for example) are not in the same league of significance as others. Why were others ignored?
But that was all well until I read that E. Wigner never returned to Hungary late in his life and was never honored there officially. I met Wigner in Budapest in the late seventies on one of his several trips to Hungary and I know that he received numerous acknowledgments there. Among others, he was elected an Honorary Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. So I wonder, what else is inaccurate in the book?

In this very insightful work the lives of only nine people, saved from the Holocaust, are delved into and their impact on the world shown. John Von Nueman, Edward Teller and Robert Capa are only a few of these. The idea is partly to give a slice of life of the Hungarian Jews who were able to flee, showing how they made new lives and impacted the world. But the more sad and disturbing question is, imagine the contribution the 400,000 or more Hungarian Jews could have had, had the German Nazis and their collaborators not murdered them, gassing them all as they were deported in just a few weeks in 1944, destroying in one breadth an entire world.

Seth J. Frantzman

Ms Marton is a wonderful writer and her subject matter is close to her heart as she is a transplanted Hungarian, like the subjects of her fascinating tale: "The Great Escape". Marton has focused on nine Hungarians,scientists, film makers and photographers, who fled their homeland because of the country's intolerance to their religion. To a man they went on to make their mark in their respective fields the common thread besides their birthplace, was their everlasting affection for Budapest as one of the subjects stated "Everything I am is because of my experience growing up in Budapest". A very fine read, as a result of the book, I have been looking into travelling to this fabled city .

I could not put this book down. Ms. Marton is an extraordinary storyteller and everything she describes is with the heart and soul. I felt like I was in the cafe's of Budapest during the high times, and I commiserated with the sadness as these wonderful and brilliant men left their homelands.....Ms. Marton paints a heartgripping picture of their pain in leaving, knowing they must leave to become all they can become. The extreme sadness comes in visualizing the brilliance within this city, and how it was trivialized due world events.
Having visited Budapest last year for the first time, the descriptions became more poignant...everyone should read this book for so many reasons. I will read other books of hers since she is a wonderful writer.

During the dark days before the Nazi ambush overcame all of Europe, nine Jewish men fled from Hungary. Determined to escape their homeland away from anti-Semitism, nine men went on to change the world. In The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World, Kati Marton, records the lives of these nine men and their significant achievements. She also shows how each of these nine men individually changed by their experience in Budapest, and how a city that once welcomed and accepted Jews, quickly changed into a dictatorship and the Nazi nuisance began to overcome Europe. While these nine men were able to escape, about seventy percent of Hungary's Jewish population was destroyed in the later days of World War II.
The nine men whose lives are written about in this book include the scientists Edward Teller, John Von Neumann, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner. Also mentioned are moviemakers, Michael Curtiz and Alexander Korda. Legendary photographers Robert Capa and Andre Kertesz, and the political writer, Arthur Koestler are also included. Of the nine, Teller, Wigner, and Szilard gained recognition for their work in physics and on the atomic bomb; Von Neumann was the developer of electronic computers and the Game Theory. Of the filmmakers, Curtiz, the only one of the nine to be raised in an Orthodox household, directed Casablanca, and Korda produced The Third Man, as well as numerous propaganda films for the Allies. Meanwhile, Capa is known through his photographs; Francisco Franco's was a Spanish dictator during the devastating airborne assault in the Spanish Civil War. Along with Kertesz, he helped to pioneer the field of photojournalism.
The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World is an amazing book, both for the remarkable historic reality of pre and post war in Europe, and also for the greatly gifted insight that is provided into the lives of these nine brilliant men. Kati Marton paints a dramatic picture of life in Budapest before the war, and the changes that were made as the military was trying to force the world again through war, then leading to the beginning of gaining strength. Marton also allows us to explore how each of these nine men, together, approach the decision that they needed to escape Hungary and go into exile; as well as how each managed to escape the dictatorship that was out to destroy them. She also deals with the issues they faced as they tried to establish themselves in new countries and how they tried, each in their own ways, to warn the world of the threatening crisis that was on the horizon. In this insightful and moving book, Marton also shows the achievements of each of these men, and she also examines the impact that they had on the world: politically, scientifically, and culturally.
Kati Marton's writing and narration captures the insightful passion of detailed history, Jewish and Hungarian. This book will interest anyone who is interested in Hungarian or Jewish history, or in discovering or rediscovering how nine brilliant and influential Hungarian Jews made a lasting impact on a world in which they were always outsiders.

This story is outwardly about the title. And tells of their lives and great effect on the world, bouncing from one to the other and from place to place keeping it always interesting. But spiritually, the book is really a touching and sensitive tribute from the author and the nine amazing people she writes about and their common love affair with their original Hungarian ancestry and language and the amazing city of Budapest.

It seems like the author woke up one day and discovered who she really is and was (or wished she had been) and searched her history for what she missed and longs for through the lives of these 9 amazing people and the land they came from.

For everyone who wants to go home again.

I haven't read a book in about 6 months. It was a refreshing comeback with Kati Marton's The Great Escape. Her use of vivid imagery and lively characters paved the way for an interesting and enjoyable read.
My favorite characters in the book reached the hearts of millions of people through art. Capa and Curtiz had me captivated from the moment my eyes caught their names. Before this book, I hadn't heard of either of them. Now, after reading it, I find myself intrigued enough to perform research on their works. I am partial to art over science, and so the invention of the h-bomb, though a breakthrough in science, didn't spark my interest as much as that of Capa's photographs and Curtiz's films.
Marton had a way of enticing me to play a video in my head every time I turned a page. The idea of Budapest as this spectacular city and the New York Café as the center of the Universe probably caught my attention more that anything in the book. I am fully aware that the anti-semitism should promote a feeling of sympathy or anger in me. It should have touched my heart in some way. Yet, I was distracted by this amazing city in its thriving era. Every time I read about it, images of old-time café's and gentlemen dressed in tan-colored suits relaxing, watching one of Curtiz's films on a pull down screen or a blank wall seemed to dominate my though process.
I envisioned Hollywood in its radiance. The huge studio complex of Warner Brothers, people rolling away sceneries, famous actors being chased by hair and make-up, directors shouting commands. As my eyes crossed every word, the more vivid the picture became. The stronger the smell of cigar smoke and freshly painted sets.
The portrayal of Capa's adventures in photography were fascinating. The Normandy invasion, in its detailed clarity had me feeling the breeze of the ocean as the soldiers hit sand.
Alexander Korda living above his means left a picture in my head of a man impeccably dressed even to sleep. A man seen holding his chin high, a scarf around his neck, a cigar in his had and the world in his palm.
I found myself diving into every syllable of this book. It gave the effect of not only words on a page, but traveling through time, seeing history made through scientific discoveries and the foundation of today's artistic culture.

In the opening chapter of this book Marton tells of a visit made by Eugene Wigner and Leo Szilard in the summer of 1939 to a vacationing Einstein in a small town in northern Long Island. In this conversation Wigner and Szilard inform him that the process of nuclear fission most likely can be harnassed to produce bombs of unprecedented destructiveness. What strikes me here is Einstein's response. He says that he had not considered this. This is not the main point of Marton's story. (Her main point is to show the great influence two of her nine Hungarians will have on the twentieth century i.e. Their meeting with Einstein will eventually lead to Einstein's letter to Roosevelt and the Manhattan Project which will build the bomb) But it was for me a quite remarkable revelation. Einstein had no idea of the tremendous destructive power his search for pure 'truth' for those harmonic laws which to him had such great beauty, would lead. The irony of this is truly awful and astounding.
In this book Marton tells the respective stories of nine remarkable figures,the physicists John von Neumann, Wigner, Szilard, Teller, two photographers, Andre Kertesz, Robert Capa, the film directors Michael Curtisz, Alexander Korda , and the writer Arthur Koestler. All of these Jewish Hungarians raised in Budapest had to leave their native Hungary to make their marks upon the world.
I am not convinced that the photographers and the directors are in the same class as the physicists. But their stories are told in a fascinating way. The various identities taken upon himself by Arthur Koestler and his intellectual transformations in themselves make a remarkable tale.
The question of the negative implications of some of their activities , the fact that one can also change the world for Evil, is an implicitly central theme of this work.

The nine men biographied in this book all were born in pre-WWI Budapest when it was the capital of half the Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were "double" outsiders being both Jews and Hungarians, estranged from most of the rest of Central Europe and from their own homeland. After WWI and (thankfully) before the beginning of WW2, they all managed to escape. But they didn't escape from Hitler, most when they first left Budapest went to either Berlin or Vienna; they truly escaped from Admiral Horthy and his Arrow Cross, the first fascist government in Europe.

Of the nine, seven made their homes in america and two in england. In England would 'settle' Alexander Korda who was considered the 'only' British film mogul (producer of "The Third Man") who was later knighted. Also Arthur Koestler, ex-communist who would write the Stalin scathing novel "Darkness at Noon" which first brought to light the Gulag and the terror of Communism.

Four of the scientist who came to america ended up the major forces behind the 'Manhattan Project', the H-Bomb (and later design the 'Strategic Defense Initiative') and the first true computer "Eniac". Two others are responsible for many of the most famous photographs ever published (Robert Capa was known as 'the World's Greater War Photo- journalist') in Look, Life and Home & Gardens. The last man, Michael Curtiz, created the look and feel of three of the most famous american movies, "Mildred Pierce" "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and what many consider the greatest (romantic) movie ever made "Casablanca". It was Curtiz who fought with Jack Warner (and won) the battle to use Bogart and Bergman, instead of George Raft and Bette Davis.

At the end, Kati Marton (whose own family escaped from Hungary in 1956 following the abortive revolution), does a phenomenal job of bringing these nine mens lives to life. Her ending snippets about Andrew Grove (of Intel) and George Soros (who gives new meaning to the word Philanthropist) are worth the price of the book alone.

The book by Kati Marton was written beautifully with many details, which made me feel as if I were living out each of the nine main Jewish Hungarian men's lives. Marton's journalistic approach was unique and her talent for research and gathering the facts is evident. Her language was simple to understand and straight to the point, but with a hint of European culture mixed in from certain quotes expressed in Hungarian and French. From the beginning, the book was pouring out descriptions about the exquisite city of Budapest, then of Paris, Berlin, and Hollywood. When I initially began to read the book, I was flooded with facts and information which were unknown to me, yet I could not stop reading. I was drawn into the true stories of each of the nine great Jewish men who were lucky enough to flee from Hitler's wrath. The book made me open my eyes as to how the world never makes sense and is ruled by people who have power and corrupt ideas. I loved reading about all of the scientists and finding out their roots on how they were raised and where they came from. My favorites, however, were Leo Szilard and John Von Neumann; both were extraordinarily intelligent with amazing accomplishments. As I read more about the lives of these two masters of science, it really made me envious of the knowledge they were able to gain. This book also focused a lot on the topic of religion and as a result I have come to understand the subject even less. After reading the book completely, it leaves you with a sense of emptiness at how dark and cruel the world can be. Whether in an oppressive nation, a free country, or in one's own apartment, you learn that every person is always alone. The message to be gained is that the only person you can rely on is yourself and that is the exact mindset that each of the nine men carried with them self throughout their lifetime. From reading just one page, many thoughts and questions come to mind. It makes you think and try to rationalize all the events being told in the story, like war, racism, and religion, but there are not always clean cut answers or even explanations for them. The personalities filled within each page are incredible. I enjoyed Szilard's roughness which was always misunderstood since he was only expressing his passions in a fervent manner and I found Von Neumann's modesty and taciturn traits quite endearing when he was making significant discoveries in research. Different areas of life are covered throughout the book and they are revealed in such a way as to guide the reader's mind and soul on a journey to understand themselves and the men who made such a difference in the world.