Alexs Wake, Martin Goldsmith
Alexs Wake, Martin Goldsmith
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Alex's Wake
A Voyage of Betrayal and Journey of Remembrance

Author: Martin Goldsmith

Narrator: Martin Goldsmith

Unabridged: 12 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/08/2014

Synopsis

Alex’s Wake is a tale of two parallel journeys undertaken seven decades apart. In the spring of 1939, Alex and Helmut Goldschmidt were two of more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the St. Louis, “the saddest ship afloat” (New York Times). Turned away from Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the St. Louis returned to Europe, a stark symbol of the world’s indifference to the gathering Holocaust. The Goldschmidts disembarked in France, where they spent the next three years in six different camps before being shipped to their deaths in Auschwitz.

In the spring of 2011, Alex’s grandson, Martin Goldsmith, followed in his relatives’ footsteps on a six-week journey of remembrance and hope, an irrational quest to reverse their fate and bring himself peace. Alex’s Wake movingly recounts the detailed histories of the two journeys, the witnesses Martin encounters for whom the events of the past are a vivid part of a living present, and an intimate, honest attempt to overcome a tormented family legacy.

About Martin Goldsmith

Martin Goldsmith is director of classical music programming for XM Satellite Radio. From 1989 to 1999, he hosted Performance Today, NPR’s daily classical music program. Since 1984 he has been cohost of Songs for Aging Children, a radio program devoted to the singer-songwriter generation. He lives in Maryland with his wife.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jill on December 07, 2016

Martin Goldsmith has written "Alex's Wake", the search for his grandfather and uncle, who had been two of the passengers on the "SS St Louis". The boat, which set out from Hamburg to Havana in 1939 and carrying a total of 937 Jewish passengers, who had been promised asylum in Cuba. After being turne......more

Goodreads review by Rita Kay on July 07, 2014

Martin Goldsmith knew that although his father and his wife had escaped Nazi Germany, his grandfather and his father's younger brother had not. Martin began a search through letters and documents that led him to all the places that his ancestors had lived during the downward spiral from a home which......more

Goodreads review by Robert on June 08, 2017

Incredibly powerful and moving story of one family so tragically affected by Nazi Germany. Martin Goldsmith re-traces the route taken by his grandfather and uncle trying to flee Germany at the start of WWII. They were aboard the SS St. Louis which was denied docking in both Cuba and the U.S. and had......more

Goodreads review by Donna on July 29, 2016

Holocaust memoirs take on added urgency right now, between the revisionists who want to rewrite history and claim that the entire thing was either a hoax or dreadful exaggeration, and the fact that the eye witnesses and survivors are nearly all dead now. Martin Goldsmith retraces the journey, both a......more

Goodreads review by Samantha on January 16, 2014

Alex's Wake is a very unique memoir that takes the reader on a emotional journey through Europe. I was expecting the story of the SS St. Louis when I picked up this book. The story of these doomed refugees who paid all they had to emigrate to Cuba, only to be turned away, is only one small part of t......more

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