Escape Through the Balkans

"A breathtaking story by a gifted writer ...It describes the flight of Irene Grunbaum from Belgrade through Albania and Italy and ultimately to Brazil...The fate of the Yugoslavian Jews under the Nazis is not well known. Even less familiar is the wartime experience of the small Jewish community in Albania. Grunbaum's route took her through areas where, in a haunting reflection of this decade's war in the Balkans, events were so complex and confusing that no one, least of all those caught up in them, knew quite what was happening. [Grunbaum] conveys both the concrete events and the emotional turmoil of a young woman on the run in alien, often hostile, territory, living on her wits, dependent on strangers, never knowing whom she could trust."--Women's Review of Books "Reads like an adventure story ...The memoirs suggest an attractive personality able to influence men and women alike, not to mention an intellect able to deal with trouble...Irene Grunbaum was resilience personified, hers was a will which truly triumphed."--Immigrants and Minorities Katherine Morris is Communications Manager at Conversational Computing Corporation in Redmond, Washington.
She is the editor of Odyssey of Exile: Jewish Women Flee the Nazis for Brazil