And The World Closed Its Doors : The Story Of One Family Abandoned To The Holocaust

Much has been written about the West's unwillingness to attempt the rescue of tens of thousands of European Jews from the hands of the Nazis. Now David Clay Large gives a specific human face to this tragedy of bureaucratic inertia and ill will. In this masterpiece of Holocaust literature, Large tells the wrenching story of Max Schohl, a German Jew who in the years preceding World War II could not find a government that would allow his family to immigrate, despite wealth, education, business and family connections, a job offer from an American university, and herculean efforts by himself and his American relatives. After repeated but fruitless efforts to gain entry first to the United States, and then to Britain, Chile, and Brazil, Max died in Auschwitz, and his wife and daughters were sent to hard labor in Wiesbaden. Max left behind a unique collection of family letters and documents, which Large has brought together into a gripping, personal commentary on the evolution of the Holocaust in Europe and the hopelessly inadequate response from abroad. Biography & Autobiography,Historical,History,Holocaust "Max Schohl was a Renaissance man. German first, Jewish second, he was classically educated, spoke several languages, and played the violin. He became a decorate officer during the First World War, and later a scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist and community leader. When the Nazis came to power he believed that his record would spare him and that the townsfolk, many of whom had eaten at his charitable soup kitchen and knew his largesse as an employer, would defend him. Yet on Kristallnacht his own neighbors and employees ransacked his home. Schohl, robbed of his factory, turned his full energies to saving himself and his family through emigration, but no country would take them." "David Clay Large tells the story of how the Schohls were caught in a tightening noose, unable to escape although all odds seemed to be in their favor. In the United States, relatives petitioned tirelessly on their behalf and Max was offered a teaching position at an American college, but the U.S. was determined to keep its quota of Jewish immigrants low throughout the period of anti-Semitic persecutions in Germany and Europe. In the pre-war years, America did not fill even its restrictive quota for German immigrants, for which most of the applicants were Jewish. Subsequent efforts to emigrate to Britain, then Chile and Brazil, also failed, despite money raised by American relatives, because by that time, 1939-40, doors around the world were slamming shut to the desperate Jewish refugees from Europe. The Schohls found brief sanctuary in Yugoslavia, but after the Nazi occupation Max was sent to Auchwitz and his wife and daughters were sent to hard labor, spared the camp that soon claimed Max because his wife was a convert to Judaism and his daughters were only of half Jewish blood." "Much has been written about the West's unwillingness to rescue European Jews from the hands of the Nazis; Large gives a graphic personal dimension to the restrictionist immigration policies and indifferent consuls that denied so many Jews a safe haven during the Holocaust. Max's youngest daughter, Kathe Schohl-Wells, today a widow living in Charleston, West Virginia, has given Large access to her family's records, a unique collection of letters and other documents chronicling the experiences of the Schohls and those who tried to bring them to England and America."--BOOK JACKET In this masterpiece of Holocaust literature, David Clay Large tells the wrenching story of Max Schohl, a German Jew who, in the midst of the Second World War, could not find a government that would allow his family to immigrate, despite wealth, education, and business and family connections. After repeated but fruitless efforts to gain entry first to the United States and then to Britain, Chile, and Brazil, Max died in Auschwitz and his wife and daughters were sent to hard labor in Wiesbaden. Much has been written about the West's unwillingness to attempt the rescue of tens of thousands of European Jews from the hands of the Nazis; now David Clay Large gives a human face to this tragedy of bureaucratic inertia and ill will. The youngest daughter of the Schohl family, today a seventy-four-year-old widow living in Charleston, South Carolina, has opened her family's records to Large: a unique collection of family letters and other documents chronicling the experiences of the Schohls and those who tried to bring them to England and America. From these papers Large has fashioned a gripping and intimate narrative of one family's efforts to escape the Holocaust in Europe and the inadequate response from abroad. and he would later insist that his children learn to play the piano. Like many German Jews, He became a great admire of Richard Wagner, not letting that compose's notorious anti-Semitism get in the way of his enjoyment of Die Meistersinger and Lohengrin. Draws on letters and personal documents to recount the story of the Schohls, a Jewish-German family who despite wealth, education, and connections were unable to escape Germany during the second World War. More clearly than many other books, Large's account depicts the tragic abandonment of the Jews by Western Nations.- Booklist