Escape Through the Pyrenees
Published on 1. March 2000
Book
Paperback/Softback
232 pages
978-0-8101-1803-4 (ISBN)
Description
Though it reads like a suspense novel, this memoir is Lisa Fittko's extraordinary story of life as an "enemy alien" in France before and after the German invasion of 1940. Escaping a French prison, Fittko and her husband found their way to the Pyrenees and, while awaiting permission to enter Spain, helped hundreds of refugees, including Walter Benjamin, escape deportation, torture, and death at the hands of the Nazis.
Reviews / Votes
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"The author takes delight in describing the people she met--the 70-year-old female hobo, for example . . . who read Baudelaire and sang the "Marseillaise" at the top of her voice. . . . It is in portraits like this that Escape Through the Pyrenees, well translated by David Koblick, transcends the documentary forumla and captures the poetry of human character." -New York Times Book Review
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Evanston
United States
Illustrations
facsimiles, portraits
Weight
390 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8101-1803-4 (9780810118034)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Lisa Fittko fled to France in 1941, settled in Cuba for a time, and immigrated to the United States in 1948. She is active in the peace movement.
David Koblick an American, is retired from the electrical construction Industry and resides with his wife, Berta, in Steyr, Austria. His second vocation is translating in the German and English languages.
David Koblick an American, is retired from the electrical construction Industry and resides with his wife, Berta, in Steyr, Austria. His second vocation is translating in the German and English languages.