10 results for "Biography"

Escape through the Pyrenees

Fittko, Lisa
"Though it reads like a suspense novel, Escape through the Pyrenees is Lisa Fittko's extraordinary memoir of life as an "enemy alien" in France before and after the German invasion of 1940. Fittko and her husband, Hans, were Jewish leftists in Berlin who became active members of the anti-Fascist German resistance. In 1933, they fled the Gestapo to what they thought was the safety of France. To the French authorities, however, they and thousands of other German émigrés represented a grave political threat. Soon these émigrés were rounded up and crowded into concentration camps."--Back cover.
Northwestern University Press 2000 221 pages

Two roads home: Hitler, Stalin, and the miraculous survival of my family

Finkelstein, Daniel
"An epic and beautifully written World War II family history that spans Europe, telling of two happy families uprooted by war, their incredible suffering in Hitler's and Stalin's camps, and the near-miraculous survival and rescue of the author's parents who met after the war. Daniel Finkelstein's grandfather Alfred Wiener was a German Jewish intellectual leader who tolled an early warning of the impending Holocaust and became an archivist of Nazi crimes. He relocated his family to safety in Amsterdam, where they became close with Anne Frank's family. But they were eventually separated, and Daniel's mother Mirjam was sent to Bergen-Belsen with her mother and sisters while Alfred worked feverishly to free them. Finkelstein's father, Ludwik, grew up in a prosperous Jewish family in Poland where his father was a patriotic hero of the Great War. But when Stalin took control, Finkelstein's grandfather was deported to Siberia, while Ludwik and his mother were sent to Kazahkstan, where they barely survived freezing winters and harrowing forced labor conditions. Love and Murder is a page-turning account of ingenuity, bravery and the almost unbelievable coincidences that brought Daniel's parents together. The story features secret archives, forgery and theft, and sweeps across Europe to show the expanse of the war. Moving, engrossing and inspiring, Love and Murder will profoundly touch all who read it"--
Doubleday 2023 374 pages

From Tajikistan to the moon: a memoir : a story of tragedy, survival and triumph of the human spirit

Frimtzis, Robert
From Tajikistan to the Moon is an inspirational, true story of the spellbinding events of World War II, the author s escape from his war-torn country, his flight to freedom, and his ultimate success in America. Told from a unique Soviet perspective, Robert Frimtzis takes you from surviving bombs of the Nazi blitzkrieg, to imminent starvation and deprivation in a mud hut in Tajikistan, to contributing to America's lunar exploration and spacecraft development. Without warning, his childhood was shattered, his home was destroyed, and he was plunged into the madness and savagery of World War II. His family evaded Nazi capture by running eastward 3,000 miles to Tajikistan. To get to America they crossed borders illegally, trekked across half of Europe, and eventually ended up in a displaced persons camp in Italy. At nineteen, penniless and knowing little English, he arrived in America with the goal to continue his education.
Ecliptic Pub 2008 360 pages

From Tajikistan to the moon: a memoir : a story of tragedy, survival and triumph of the human spirit

Frimtzis, Robert
From Tajikistan to the Moon is an inspirational, true story of the spellbinding events of World War II, the author's escape from his war-torn country, his flight to freedom, and his ultimate success in America. Told from a unique Soviet perspective, Robert Frimtzis takes you from surviving bombs of the Nazi blitzkrieg, to imminent starvation and deprivation in a mud hut in Tajikistan, to contributing to America's lunar exploration and spacecraft development. Without warning, his childhood was shattered, his home was destroyed, and he was plunged into the madness and savagery of World War II. His family evaded Nazi capture by running eastward 3,000 miles to Tajikistan. To get to America they crossed borders illegally, trekked across half of Europe, and eventually ended up in a displaced persons camp in Italy. At nineteen, penniless and knowing little English, he arrived in America with the goal to continue his education.
Ecliptic Pub 2008 360 pages

Chasing asylum

Orner, Eva
Filmmaker Eva Orner takes us on a personal, gripping and compelling journey to show us how she came to make her documentary about Australia's asylum seeker policies. ' My work as a filmmaker has taken me to some wild, dangerous places ... It's been a crazy, nomadic kind of life, taking me to conflict zones and desperately poor, chaotic, unstable countries. I've been sick, injured, scared and had too many close calls to mention. I spend a lot of time alone, in airports, lugging camera gear, gazing up at flickering departure boards.' But I love it. I love the feeling I get when I am heading into the unknown.' Angry and frustrated with Australia's asylum seeker and refugee policies, Eva Orner, Academy Award®-winning filmmaker, returned home after a decade living in the States to make the documentary Chasing Asylum about the issue. Embarking on a tumultuous eighteen months, Eva travelled to Indonesia, Cambodia, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iran, spending time with and filming asylum seekers, as well as interviewing politicians, activists and commentators including David Marr and Malcolm Fraser. She smuggled a pen camera into an Indonesian jail to interview a convicted people smuggler, she talked to whistle blowers in Australia, and in Iran she met with the family of the man killed in the Manus Island riot. Chasing Asylum is a compelling insight into a filmmaker's journey, and a very personal story of the cost, risks and rewards of putting yourself on the line for a film and for a cause. The Guardian writes of the film Chasing Asylum: 'The full, muscular weight of the feature documentary format has finally tackled the subject with Chasing Asylum, a viscerally intense expose given gravitas by Academy and Emmy award-winning film-maker Eva Orner ... not just successful, but awfully and unforgettably effective: vital, evocative and gut-wrenching.' 'Eva Orner is no stranger to bravery ... she manifests this steadfastness in relating story after story where pain, violence and horror frame her narrative, interspersed by accounts of the daily life of a filmmaker ... Orner is brave not just emotionally, but also physically, risking imprisonment, illness and violence to uncover the stories of those who have sought refuge ... It is a story that must be told.' Sydney Morning Herald
HarperCollins Publishers 2016 293 pages