The Exit Visa: A Family’s Flight from Nazi Europe

Description

Title Description: 6th September, 1942. A middle-aged Jewish refugee stands on the Swiss side of the Franco-Swiss border above Geneva. He has been living in Switzerland since he fled Vienna in November 1938, as the Nazi persecution of the city’s Jewish population intensified. He is now waiting for the arrival of the wife he has not seen for nearly four years. Against all odds he has managed to get an entry permit for her to join him in Switzerland. She appears on the French side. They see each other. Call out. She begins to cross the few yards of nomansland that separate them. An official calls her back. She hesitates, turns, goes back - and is lost forever. This book tells the story of the wartime journey of Toni Schiff, as she ventured across Europe to the this fateful near-meeting at the Franco- Swiss border – and what happened next. Based on the extensive research of her daughter, Kindertransportee Hilda Schiff, and told by Sheila Rosenberg, who shared much of the later research and many of the research journeys, this book sheds light on the lives of one family – caught up in, and ultimately separated by, the tragic and tumultuous events of World War II. Cover Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Dramatis Personae Prologue 1 Hilda 2 Vienna: Toni and the family up to February 1939 3 Escape to Belgium 4 Switzerland: The Moses Schiff story 1938–1942. The Swiss visa 5 From Antwerp to Annemasse 6 The last journeys: Annemasse to Rivesaltes; Rivesaltes to Drancy 7 The last journeys: Convoy 33 to Auschwitz and Auschwitz Epilogue: ‘And the Sun Still Shone’ Notes Bibliography Index