Customer Reviews

Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Leap into Darkness" is an absolutely spellbinding account of the author's transformation from a boy growing up in a sheltered environment to a resourceful, daring, brilliant escape artist matching wits with the Nazis and their French collaborators. The intellectual honesty, the ever-present fear, the self-doubts, the worries about family and friends, the repeated encounters with treachery, the enemy and with those who risked their lives to help, ranks this work with the best of Holocaust literature.

This is one of the best written stories from the Holocaust. It details one young mans experience in running from the Nazis. The moral courage, love of life and family shows throughout this book.Bretholzs' detail in recall is outstanding. Everyone with a Holocaust interest must read this book.

Leap Into Darkness
Leo Bretholz
Auto-Biographical

Leo Bretholz is a young boy in this book who is running for his life in the Holocaust. He was born in Vienna, Austria.
He survived the Nazis' plan to kill all the Jews. He escaped seven times during almost a seven-year time period. During his seven-year run for his life he was in many countries such as France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxemburg, and a few others. He was in Internment Camps, Forced Labor Camps, and was improsined a few times. It was unbelievable to here the story of how he escaped death.

This book was one of the greatest Holocaust. Books I have ever read. It contains a great deal of information on the Holocaust. The author Leo Bretholz was a survivor of the Holocaust. This book compares to "Night" by Elie Wiesel. This book was different though because Leo encountered so much more and was on the run for seven years. It is unimaginable.

"Leap Into Darkness" was one of the most touching books I have experienced. I could not put the book down. I have read many Holocaust books but this was by far the best book I have ever read. It contains the greatest story of how Leo Bretholz was a brave man and he escaped from danger. It's amazing to here all that he had to go through but that he was still here today. It was also interesting to here that after the Holocaust his name was posted in a book for those who had passed away but he was grateful to be living. He dealt with the loss of family members but he still didn't give up. Leo Bretholz touched my life because he wasn't a quitter. A quote on page 158 he asked, "What will happen to us?" Even though there were bad possibilities Leo Bretholz never gave up. I would recommend this book to anyone over the age of 12. If you are looking for suspense this is a great book for you. If you want to learn a lot of information on the holocaust this is definitely the answer. This may be too scary for younger children and if you don't like sad Holocaust stories this may not be the right thing for you. Overall this is one of the best stories I have ever read and I encourage you to read it.

I came across this book at a Baltimore bookstore on the day the authors were doing a signing, and was very pleased. This is the story of a young Jewish man and his flight for life across Europe during the Nazi invasion. The book is gripping as Mr. Bretholz is dealt one fate after another during his many attempts to outrun the Nazis. The tension mounts as you follow Mr. Bretholz through the horrifying adventure of Nazi Germany and run in his footsteps. I've read numerous books about World War II, but this is the first that to give me a true sense of seeing the horror first hand as it unfolded. It is a tragic personal adventure that will bring you to tears as you experience the inhumanities and tragedies of the war and then share in the author's final triumph of coming to America. I've read two memoirs this year, this one and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. While they are two very different tragic stories, they are among the better books I have read in quite some time.

A fantastic story told by the man for whom it was a reality Leo Bretholz set out to write a book, not because he is a bookwriter, but because he has a story to tell. His childhood in Vienna, living the holocaust as a life event, loss, danger and the exhileration of escape and survival unfold with the suspense one usually expects from a fictional thriller. The thing that makes this book important it that it is the truth. Highly recommended for those interested in this period of history, and equally as a good read for for everybody.

full of surprises, turnes and twists is this true story of World War 11. My heart pounded as I read Leo's harrowing tale of escape. It is with both pleasure and pride to say that I personally know this man. He has been a friend of my family for many years. I never knew the true extent of what he had to endure just to survive until I read this book.

This is an amazing true story. But I have one caveat: skip the introduction. It's a lot of unnecessary backstory that will bog you down.

Chapter 1 starts off amazingly: "I saw Adolf Hitler with my own eyes from a distance of perhaps 20 yards." How could you not be hooked?

I had the honor of meeting Leo Bretholz once. He's an amazing man who told his amazing story quite well.

Leo Bretholz has a grim but, in the end, marvelous story of the will to live. Old enough to remember WWII (as an Army brat)I read this at the enthusiastic recommendation of someone 40 years younger--a testament to its great general appeal. The ending has a surprise punch that will amaze anyone interested in the complexity of family relations.

I first heard of this book when excerpts were being read from it on CSpan Book Review. Mr. Bretholz's exploits and escapes are well documented and it seems as if it were almost pre-ordained for him to write this book, both as a testament to the treatment of Jews and a reminder of the Holocaust - Lest We Forget. It must be hard for someone who has survived the Holocaust to revisit in their mind such horrifying events. I'm not sure I could do it, but Mr. Bretholz has written a compelling book about his survival of that tragic time in history.

Well, the writer is my Grandpa. I am 10 years old so I read it early. My mom helped me out a lot. But thats not exactly a bad thing! Everytime I came to a word I didn't know she would tell me. My mom really could help because my mom was even the one who read it and edited it so she was one of the first, and that really helped because she knew the whole story. I first thought it wasn't such a bad tradgedy of what he did, but after I accually read it, I really changed my mind! If you have not read it, you really got to. Even if you are ten like me, try and you will really like it! Expeccially read it if you like biographies and autobiographies, cause this is an autobiography! Even if you don't like non-fiction, read it anyway! This is so cool that it sounds impossible, and im it sounds impossible it's as fiction as any other book!