Asylum : a survivor's flight from Nazi-occupied Vienna through wartime France

Title:

Author:

Scheyer, Moriz, 1886-1949, author.

ISBN:

9780316272889

Personal Author:

Scheyer, Moriz, 1886-1949, author.

Edition:

First North American edition.

Publication Information:

New York : Little Brown and Company, 2016.

Physical Description:

305 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 22 ; cm.

Contents:

The 'Anschluss' -- Breathing again: Switzerland -- France: beloved France -- Earning the first hundred francs -- The men in berets -- The 'Drôle de Guerre' -- Paris, ghost of an enchanted city -- Paths of the Exodus -- 'Armistice' -- Paris under the German boot -- The French ... and the French -- From 'the Israelites' to 'the Jew' -- Stay of execution -- 'For examination of your situation' -- Hut 8 -- Another stay of execution -- 'Zone libre' -- Voiron -- Nine gendarmes versus five Jews -- Caserne Bizanet, Grenoble -- A toast -- Escape to Switzerland -- A telegram -- Labarde -- Blessed are the poor in spirit -- Nuns -- A glimpse through a peephole -- Music -- Eugène le Roy -- Informers -- In place of a chapter on the Resistance -- They're coming - they're not coming - they're coming! -- The morning of 6th June 1944 -- Summer -- The first step into freedom -- Carlos -- In memory of my comrades from the concentration camp at Beaune-la-Rolande -- The undeserving survivors -- Still in Labarde: but free.

Abstract:

"A recently discovered account reveals an Austrian Jewish writer's flight, persecution and clandestine life in wartime France,"--NoveList.

Language Note:

Translated from the German.

Personal Subject:

Scheyer, Moriz, 1886-1949.

Subject Term:

Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Austria -- Vienna -- Personal narratives.

Jews -- Austria -- Vienna -- Social conditions -- 20th century.

Added Author:

Singer, P. N. (Peter N.), 1962-

Document ID:

SD_ILS:2246938

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Library	Collection	Collection	Call Number	Status
Searching... Auberry Branch Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Biography Area	SCHEYER MO Sch	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Woodward Park Library (Fresno Co.)	Searching... Unknown	Biography Area	SCHEYER MO Sch	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A recently discovered account of an Austrian Jewish writer's flight, persecution, and clandestine life in wartime France.

As arts editor for one of Vienna's principal newspapers, Moriz Scheyer knew many of the city's foremost artists, and was an important literary journalist. With the advent of the Nazis he was forced from both job and home. In 1943, in hiding in France, Scheyer began drafting what was to become this book.

Tracing events from the Anschluss in Vienna, through life in Paris and unoccupied France, including a period in a French concentration camp, contact with the Resistance, and clandestine life in a convent caring for mentally disabled women, he gives an extraordinarily vivid account of the events and experience of persecution.

After Scheyer's death in 1949, his stepson, disliking the book's anti-German rhetoric, destroyed the manuscript. Or thought he did. Recently, a carbon copy was found in the family's attic by P.N. Singer, Scheyer's step-grandson, who has translated and provided an epilogue.

Author Notes

Moriz Scheyer (1886-1949) was arts editor of one of Vienna's main newspapers from 1924 until his expulsion in 1938. A personal friend of Stefan Zweig, in his own lifetime he published three books of travel writing and three volumes of literary-historical essays. He died in France in 1949.

P. N. Singer is Scheyer's step-grandson, a writer, and a translator.

Reviews (1)

Library Journal Review

That this book exists at all is quite remarkable. The author, an Austrian literary critic of Jewish descent, nearly lost his life multiple times during the years of Nazi occupation. If not for several twists of fate, Scheyer's (1886-1949) life would not have been written or even published. Scheyer documented his story while in hiding, tracing his previous journeys to France and Switzerland trying to escape the Nazis. This intimate account was discovered by Scheyer's son in the 1980s, who felt it to be too anti-German and destroyed what he thought was the only copy, only to have his own son discover, translate, and publish the manuscript. Penned by an accomplished writer, this narrative offers an elegant take on the events directing Scheyer's life. VERDICT Raw, emotional, and deep, Scheyer's work contains an immediate perspective that is unusual to Holocaust survivor memoirs and deserves a place alongside other works, such as those by Anne Frank or Primo Levi.-Maria Bagshaw, Elgin Community Coll. Lib., IL © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.