My Middle Name is Israel [Paperback]

Hans Riess (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 2001

My memoir covers my life in Berlin, London, and Shanghai. I was born in Berlin in 1921. I grew up in the early 30's as an assimilated German Jew of an upper middle class family where I witnessed the rise of Nazism, I also rode my bicycle in February 1933 to see the Reichtstag fire, which started the arrest of Communists and Jews. The race laws in 1935 stopped sexual relations between Jews and Christians. I took my bicycle on Kristall Nacht (Crystal Night) in November 1938 to see the smashed windows of stores owned by Jews and burning synagogues. I was warned by my Christian teacher not to go home, but to stay with Christian friends. My father was a dentist and the last patient that night was a Gestapo agent who arrested him and took my father to police headquarters for transfer to a concentration camp. He was released in 3 1/2 weeks, and my parents worked with the Church of England to find a family who would take me in.I went to England on a children's transport and lived with a British family who paid for my engineering studies since I was only allowed to take $ 10.00 out of Germany. The war broke out in September 1939. I was declared an enemy alien. After much effort, the Bow Street station court declared me 'friendly' and I could continue my studies. After graduation, I wanted to get out of wartime England. It seemed impossible, but I found an advertisement in the London Times for an engineer to go to Shanghai for a large British trading company to convert a steel window manufacturing plant to make machine tools. I was hired but had to find a ship to leave from the only open port which was Liverpool. I found a Japanese diplomatic ship (Haruna Maru), which was transporting wives and children of Japanese diplomats as well as Mitsui and Mitsubishi bank people to Kobe, Japan. I got my German (Nazi) passport extended by the Swiss ligation and embarked in 1940 on a long sea voyage to Shanghai.The ship went through the English Channel in the blackout. Our first stop was

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hans Ludwig Riess was born in 1921 in Berlin, Germany to Jewish parents. As a child, he saw Hitler's rise to power in 1933. He viewed the damage of Jewish shops and fires of synagogues on 'Kristall Nacht' and his father being taken to a concentration camp. Mr. Riess was sent to England on a 'Kinder Transport' in March 1939 to study engineering and lived with a British family. He sailed during the war on a Japanese diplomatic ship from England via South Africa to Shanghai, China, where he worked for a British trading company. He witnessed the Japanese occupation and was permitted to continue working since he had a German passport. Mr. Riess arrived in San Francisco, CA in 1947.

Product Details

• Paperback: 260 pages
• Publisher: AuthorHouse (March 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588209660
• ISBN-13: 978-1588209665
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,138,127 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique micro-history of the Second World War, May 22, 2005

By 

Junius P. Rodriguez - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Middle Name is Israel (Paperback)

Hans Riess' autobiographic account is a remarkable story of how the rise of Nazism impacted the "assimilated" Jewish families of Berlin during the 1930s and forever changed lives thereafter. It is not a history of the Holocaust, but it is the story of the indignities suffered by those who were able to escape from Nazi Germany but nonetheless endured living upon the periphery of evil during the Second World War. Experiences of life in Berlin, London, and Shanghai are presented in a well-told story that informs as it inspires.

Junius P. Rodriguez, Associate Professor of History, Eureka College (Eureka, IL)

5.0 out of 5 stars My middle name is Israel; memoir, November 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: My Middle Name is Israel (Paperback)

It is a story of survival. A very good read. It is a facinating story of what happened in WW II.

Wally Slavkin
Spring Valley, New York