Audiobook9 hours
The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
Written by Kati Marton
Narrated by Anna Fields
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
The stunning story of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world.
In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (herself born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early twentieth century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
Marton follows these nine over the decades as they flee fascism and anti-Semitism, seek sanctuary in America and England, and set out to make their mark. The scientists Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner enlist Albert Einstein to get Franklin Roosevelt to initiate the development of the atomic bomb. Along with John von Neuman, who pioneers the computer, they succeed in achieving that goal before Nazi Germany, ending the Second World War, and opening a new age.
Arthur Koestler writes the most important anti-Communist novel of the century, Darkness at Noon. Robert Capa is the first photographer ashore on D-Day. He virtually invents photojournalism and gives us some of the century's most enduring records of modern warfare.
Andre Kertesz pioneers modern photojournalism, and Alexander Korda, who makes propaganda films for Churchill, leaves the stark portrait of a post war Europe with The Third Man, as his fellow filmmaker, Michael Curtiz, leaves us the immortal Casablanca, a call to arms and the most famous romantic film of all time.
Marton brings passion and breadth to these dramatic lives as they help invent the twentieth century.
In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (herself born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early twentieth century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
Marton follows these nine over the decades as they flee fascism and anti-Semitism, seek sanctuary in America and England, and set out to make their mark. The scientists Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner enlist Albert Einstein to get Franklin Roosevelt to initiate the development of the atomic bomb. Along with John von Neuman, who pioneers the computer, they succeed in achieving that goal before Nazi Germany, ending the Second World War, and opening a new age.
Arthur Koestler writes the most important anti-Communist novel of the century, Darkness at Noon. Robert Capa is the first photographer ashore on D-Day. He virtually invents photojournalism and gives us some of the century's most enduring records of modern warfare.
Andre Kertesz pioneers modern photojournalism, and Alexander Korda, who makes propaganda films for Churchill, leaves the stark portrait of a post war Europe with The Third Man, as his fellow filmmaker, Michael Curtiz, leaves us the immortal Casablanca, a call to arms and the most famous romantic film of all time.
Marton brings passion and breadth to these dramatic lives as they help invent the twentieth century.
Author
Kati Marton
Kati Marton is the New York Times bestselling author of nine books, including True Believer: Stalin’s Last American Spy and Enemies of the People: My Family’s Journey to America, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An award-winning former NPR correspondent and ABC News bureau chief in Germany, she was born in Hungary and lives in New York City.
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Reviews for The Great Escape
Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars
4/5
4 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yes, the title is misleading. There is no great drama here in terms of a physical escape.Yet this IS a dramatic story filled with romance, friendship and betrayal, death, Hollywood and some of the greatest mathematical minds in the world.I loved this book. It gives an intimate (though brief) portrait of a collection of thoroughly fascinating figures.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The title is exciting; it sounds like a harrowing adventure similar to Paul Brikhill's Luftstalag breakout with a similar title. But other than perhaps some visa glitches, the 9 Hungarian Jews apparently had no real harrowing challenges to escaping pre-WW II Europe. They had the foresight to leave Budapest in plenty of time, and most ended up in the USA. Marton follows the fascinating and productive lives of 4 scientists (Teller, von Neumann,Szilard, Wigner) 2 movie makers (Cutiz, Korda) 2 photographers (Capa, Kertesz) and a writer (Koestler). She is a wonderful writer, but Her Julio Cortazar-esque mixing of nine biographies makes things a bit confusing.