Description: "June 1940: France surrenders to Germany. The Gestapo is searching for Heinrich Mann and Franz Werfel, Hannah Arendt, Lion Feuchtwanger and many other writers and artists who had sought asylum in France since 1933. The young American journalist Varian Fry arrives in Marseille with the aim of rescuing as many as possible. This is the harrowing story of their flight from the Nazis under the most dangerous and threatening circumstances"--
Review Quotes: "An account of life under the threat of detention, torture, and death, of the decency and courage of ordinary people willing to help, and of one man's desperate fight against fascist cruelty and American callousness to save the lives of those whose last hope he has become - gripping, frightening, encouraging."
--Bernhard Schlink, author of The Reader
"Uwe Wittstock's Marseille 1940 reads like a novel but tells a tale that is all too true. Narrated in the present tense and with a vivid cast of characters - at the centre of which is the obstinate, admirable Varian Fry - it rescues the rescuers, highlighting the crucial role that a small group of culture-lovers played in helping Jewish intellectuals and artists flee Germany. A compelling account of one of the most dramatic periods in the history of European culture."
--Ben Hutchinson, University of Kent
"A harrowing account of anti-Nazi writers' and artists' efforts to escape France after its 1940 defeat ... Wittstock tells an irresistible story."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"... as addictive as it is nerve-racking ... a story well worth retelling."
--Magdalena Miecznicka, Financial Times
"What makes Wittstock's lively book both topical and depressing is how little things have changed. Today, refugees, driven to flee through persecution, racism and fear of death, are treated with the same lack of international generosity as in Fry's time."
--Literary Review
"In 300 pages, the German scholar Uwe Wittstock maps out the fall of France through the country's escape routes from its last "free" zone in Marseille by land and sea. It combines the essential elements of a rigorous history of a year, with the derring-do and excitement of a fast-moving thriller, narrated in a breathless present tense. It's a riveting book." "In 300 pages, the German scholar Uwe Wittstock maps out the fall of France through the country's escape routes from its last "free" zone in Marseille by land and sea. It combines the essential elements of a rigorous history of a year, with the derring-do and excitement of a fast-moving thriller, narrated in a breathless present tense. It's a riveting book."
--The Jewish Chronicle
"The narrative is thrilling and hauntingly resonant ... Readers will be engrossed."
--Publishers Weekly
"Chilling ... Wittstock, a German journalist, has done extensive research in the latest available archives and explains in his book how chaos replaced order in what had previously been a confident nation."
--The Wall Street Journal