I well remember Joe Stirling sharing his very clear memories of that night in his home village of Nickenich when three men in Nazi uniforms knocked down the family’s front door at 4am. Includes some early SAS operations and finishes with a cracking yarn about the largest POW escape, with the leader of the escapee's son intow as he retraces their steps. Prisoner of war Len Harley went on the run in Italy, surviving months in hiding and then a hazardous climb over the Abruzzo mountains. In 1938 the deteriorating situation in Germany and the enormous increase in the number of people who had been made homeless led the American president Franklin D.

The account presents the reader with an air of approaching doom as Hitler and a number of his staff openly talked of their suicide – rather than be taken prisoner by the Russians. Macdonald, reported on the economic decline of a large number of the German Jews as a result of these measures and anticipated a new exodus.

She and Joe went way back and my proudest moment was when I brought the two of them together, after an absence of over 60 years, at a Lib Dem event during a General Election campaign. As you are aware, Joe was very special to me, not just as the subject of my first book, but as my friend and confidant. However, from 25 November 1941, Germany collectively stripped all German Jews living outside the territory of their nationality, insofar as they had not yet been individually “ausgebürgert”. They had been together over that dreadful period, most probably both thinking of their children (Berta of her daughter escaped to England and Alfred and Ida of their son Günter (Joe) also safely in England). Escaping Hitler is the personal story of Eva Wyman and her family’s escape from Nazi Germany to Chile in the sociohistorical context of 1930s and 1940s, a time when the Chilean Nazi party had an active presence in the country’s major institutions.

Hubert was born in Nickenich, Joe’s home village in the Rhineland, in 1963 and when I was writing Escaping Hitler, Hubert was in touch with me, sending photographs of his relatives in the village and retelling anecdotes from his mother who still lives there. The author gathered her information through interviews with Gunter, now known as Joe Stirling, and with those closest to him.

So today I will silently think about Joe and his parents, Alfred and Ida, just two of so many who were murdered by the Nazis. During this wave of violence organized by the state against the Jews, more than 100 Jews were murdered and 30,000 Jewish men were imprisoned in concentration camps. There was no room for anyone with different ideas; from the very beginning, opponents of the regime were intimidated, persecuted and imprisoned in concentration camps.

Günter is seated, front, far left in white socks) In his adult life, Heinz felt guilty about the fate of the Sterns during the Holocaust and how his schoolfriend had to flee to England to escape Nazi atrocities. Escaping Hitler features spies and traitors, extraordinary heroism from those who ran the escape routes and offered shelter to escapees, and great feats of endurance. People who never asked for the plaudits or glory, they simply thought they were doing what was right. But best of all we’re the reunions/meetings of escapees or their children, with the people who helped, at great risk to themselves.This may result in small marks to the dustjacket and title page, please also bear in mind that each signature will be a little different from the one we show here. A readable book about a remarkable man, with snippets of life in Norwich which will bring back memories for many residents of the city. The narrator did a good job however personally I would have liked to have heard Monty Halls read the book himself. She earned a BA in English as a Second Language from the Universidad de Chile and an MA in Latin American and Spanish Literature from the University of Washington, Seattle. It's impossible to add all the information into a 40 minute episode and this is where books always win out.