Young Lothar: An Underground Fugitive in Nazi Berlin

Young Lothar: An Underground Fugitive in Nazi Berlin
ISBN-10
1786721732
ISBN-13
9781786721730
Category
History
Pages
320
Language
English
Published
2017-05-30
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing
Authors
Larry Orbach, Vivien Orbach-Smith

Description

His promising education was aborted; his close-knit family splintered. When the Gestapo came for Orbach's mother on Christmas Eve 1942, they escaped with false papers; his mother found sanctuary with a family of Communists and Orbach - under the assumed identity of Gerhard Peters - entered Berlin's underworld of 'divers'. He scraped a living by hustling pool, cheating in poker and stealing - fighting, literally, to stay alive. Outwardly he became a cagey amoral street thug, inwardly he was a sensitive, romantic boy, devoted son and increasingly religious Jew, clinging to his humanity. In the end, he was betrayed and sent to Auschwitz, on the last transport, in 1944. This singular coming of age story of life in the Berlin underground during WWII is, in essence, a story of hope, even happiness, in the very heart of darkness.

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