Generation Exodus: The Fate of Young Jewish Refugees from Nazi Germany

Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2001. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. xvii, [3], 345 p. Illustrations. Glossary. Bibliographical Essay. Index. One of the Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series. Some half a million Jews lived in Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933. Over the next decade, thousands would flee. Among these refugees, teens and young adults formed a remarkable generation. Born between 1914 and 1928 (approximately), they were old enough to appreciate the loss of their homeland and the experience of flight, but often young and flexible enough to survive and even flourish in new environments. Many would go on to make great contributions to their new countries and to the world. Walter Laqueur, himself a distinguished member of this group, offers a unique generational history of the young people whose lives were irrevocably shaped by the rise of the Nazis. They escaped to Palestine and the United States, to the Soviet Union and England, to South America and Shanghai and Australia. Some even remained in Germany, in hiding throughout the war. Some fled with their families and were greeted by friends and relatives in a new home. Others were completely alone, escaping from Germany or Austria through great danger and arriving in foreign lands with no help or support. They come from a variety of backgrounds--some secular, some observant; some Zionists, some German patriots; some poor, some well-to-do--but they are united by the experience of flight from Nazi persecution during their formative years. This generation produced such disparate figures as Henry Kissinger and "Dr. Ruth" Westheimer; noted academics and political leaders of both Israel and East Germany; even a Benedictine abbot, a Hindu guru, and a West African chieftain. Drawing on interviews, published and unpublished memoirs, and his own experiences, Walter Laqueur skillfully braids together numerous individual stories and experiences to paint a vivid collective portrait of Generation Exodus. From Wikipedia: "Walter Ze'ev Laqueur (born 26 May 1921) is an American historian and political commentator. Laqueur was born in Breslau, Lower Silesia, Prussia (modern Wroc aw, Poland), into a Jewish family. In 1938, he left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust. Laqueur lived in Israel from 1938 to 1953. After one year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he joined a Kibbutz and worked as an agricultural laborer from 1939 to 1944. In 1944, he moved to Jerusalem, where he worked as a journalist until 1953, covering Palestine and other countries in the Middle East. Since 1955 Laqueur has lived in London. He was founder and editor, with George Mosse, of the Journal of Contemporary History and of Survey from 1956 to 1964. He was also founding editor of The Washington Papers. He was Director of the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library in London from 1965 to 1994. From 1969 he was a member, and later Chairman (until 2000), of the International Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington. He was Professor of the History of Ideas at Brandeis University from 1968 to 1972, and University Professor at Georgetown University from 1976 to 1988. He has also been a visiting professor of history and government at Harvard, the University of Chicago, Tel Aviv University and Johns Hopkins University. Laqueur's main works deal with European history in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially Russian history and German history, as well as the history of the Middle East. The topics he has written about include the German Youth Movement, Zionism, Israeli history, the cultural history of the Weimar Republic and Russia, Communism, the Holocaust, fascism, and the diplomatic history of the Cold War. His books have been translated into many languages, and he was one of the founders of the study of political violence, guerrilla warfare and terrorism. His comments on international affairs have appeared in many American and European newspapers and periodicals."