The Autobiography of Leon Rubach: The First Twenty Years

by Leon Rubach

It's 1940 and Polish Jews have been moved into ghettos. One woman has a chance to escape with her two young children to a nearby cafe. There a sympathetic Turk has identity papers for the three of them with false names, nationality and religion. They must pretend to be Moslem Turks with no knowledge of the religion or language, and live for years in the middle of a Nazi neighborhood. The boy's playmates are Hitler Youth and his baby brother is indoctrinated to be an anti-Semite. Constantly suspected by the Gestapo, he is threatened at gunpoint to confess his true identity. He is asked to translate Polish into Turkish, and must even perform the Turkish national anthem, all without any knowledge of a word of Turkish. This book tells a rare account of a courageous woman's desperate fight to save her children from certain death.

164 pages, Hardcover

First published March 9, 2010