Overview

On June 6, 1944, Werner T. Angress parachuted down from a C-47 into German-occupied France with the 82nd Airborne Division. Nine days later, he was captured behind enemy lines and, concealing his identity as a German-born Jew, became a prisoner of war. Eventually, he was freed by US forces, rejoined the fight, and participated in the liberation of a concentration camp. Although he was an American soldier, less than ten years before he had been an enthusiastically patriotic German-Jewish boy. Rejected and threatened by the Nazi regime, the Angress family fled to Amsterdam to escape persecution and death, and young Angress then found his way to the United States. In Witness to the Storm, Angress weaves the spellbinding story of his life, including his escape from Germany, his new life in the United States, and his experiences in World War II. A testament to the power of perseverance and forgiveness, Witness to the Storm is the powerful tale of one man's struggle to fight for and rescue the country that had betrayed him.

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9781982525163

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Reviews

A gem...A gripping, suspenseful story...Sober, frank, and humane. -- Journal of Central European History This autobiography deserves to be placed next to Victor Klemperer's I Will Bear Witness as a vivid account of the Nazi years...Readers will find in these pages the unforgettable depiction of a turbulent life. -- Allan Mitchell, author of Nazi Paris This is an extraordinary memoir, self-ironic and humane, dealing with one of the darkest chapters of twentieth century history. -- Konrad H. Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

A gem...a gripping, suspenseful story...sober, frank, and humane. -- Journal of Central European History This is an extraordinary memoir, self-ironic and humane, dealing with one of the darkest chapters of twentieth century history. -- Konrad H. Jarausch, Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, Department of History, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Author Information

Werner T. Angress (1920-2010) was a German-Jewish refugee, WWII veteran, and professor of history; he taught European history at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, for twenty-five years. Werner Angress (then Tom) escaped Nazi Germany when he was seventeen and joined the US Army in 1941, serving as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, and making his first jump into Normandy on D-Day. He interrogated German prisoners at the French front lines and later at the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service as well as the Purple Heart. Along with many articles, he published three books: Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921-1923 (Princeton, 1963); Between Fear & Hope: Jewish Youth in the Third Reich (Columbia, 1988); and the German edition of his autobiography-Immer etwas abseits: Jugenderinnerungen eines judischen Berliners, 1920-1945 (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 2005). In 1988 he retired to Berlin, where he spoke frequently at schools and memorial sites about his youth under the Nazis. He continued to mentor students, and to use his skills as a teacher and writer to intervene on behalf of disadvantaged groups, including Turkish immigrants in Germany and East Germans after reunification. Claire Bloom, CBE, is an English film and stage actress, known for leading roles in plays such as Streetcar Named Desire, A Doll's House, and Long Day's Journey into Night, along with nearly sixty films and countless television roles, during a career spanning over six decades. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2013 Queen's birthday honors for services to drama. Stefan Rudnicki first became involved with audiobooks in 1994. Now a Grammy-winning audiobook producer, he has worked on more than three thousand audiobooks as a narrator, writer, producer, or director. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks. A recipient of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards, he was presented the coveted Audie Award for solo narration in 2005, 2007, and 2014, and was named one of AudioFile's Golden Voices in 2012.

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