Dancing with the Enemy, Paul Glaser
Dancing with the Enemy, Paul Glaser
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Dancing with the Enemy
My Family's Holocaust Secret

Author: Paul Glaser

Narrator: Christa Lewis, James Anderson Foster

Unabridged: 7 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 07/10/2018


Synopsis

The gripping story of the author's aunt, a Jewish dance instructor who was betrayed to the Nazis by the two men she loved, yet managed to survive WWII by teaching dance lessons to the SS at Auschwitz. Her epic life becomes a window into the author's own past and the key to discovering his Jewish roots.

Raised in a devout Roman Catholic family in the Netherlands, Paul Glaser was shocked to learn as an adult of his father's Jewish heritage. Grappling with his newfound identity and stunned by his father's secrecy, Paul set out to discover what happened to his family during World War II and what had caused the long-standing rift between his father and his estranged aunt, Rosie, who moved to Sweden after the war. Piecing together his aunt's wartime diaries, photographs, and letters, Paul reconstructed the dramatic story of a woman who was caught up in the tragic sweep of World War II.

Rosie Glaser was a magnetic force—hopeful, exuberant, and cunning. An emancipated woman who defied convention, she toured Western Europe teaching ballroom dancing to high acclaim, falling in love hard and often. By the age of twenty-five, she had lost the great love of her life in an aviation accident, married the wrong man, and sought consolation in the arms of yet another. Then the Nazis seized power. For Rosie, a nonpracticing Jew, this marked the beginning of an extremely dangerous ordeal. After operating an illegal dance school in her parents' attic, Rosie was betrayed by both her ex-husband and her lover, taken prisoner by the SS and sent to a series of concentration camps. But her enemies were unable to destroy her and, remarkably, she survived, in part by giving dance and etiquette lessons to her captors. Rosie was an entertainer at heart, and her vivacious spirit, her effervescent charm, and her incredible resourcefulness kept her alive amid horrendous tragedy. Of the twelve hundred people who arrived with her at Auschwitz, only eight survived. Dancing with the Enemy recalls an extraordinary life marked by love, betrayal, and fierce determination.

About Paul Glaser

Paul Glaser was born in the Netherlands shortly after World War II. He has held management positions in a number of educational and health-care institutions, including periods as director of a psychiatric hospital and as CEO of a large organization that works with the mentally handicapped. He has also been involved in the establishment of a historical printing museum, a regional theater, and a Montessori secondary school.


Reviews

Wahrscheinlich das erste Buch aus der Zeit des Holocaust, das ich absolut nicht weiterempfehlen kann.......more

Paul Glaser grew up Catholic in the Netherlands, but nearing retirement, his probing into genealogy set off conflict in the family--since the small number of Glasers who spent WWII in the East Indies were the only survivors of a large family betrayed to the authorities by Aunt Rose's ex-husband Leo.......more

Goodreads review by Sarah

I am fascinated with the human reactions to the European events leading up to and during World War II. How did the National Socialist party rise to power? Why did people support them? How did some many fall under their spell? Did the average citizen know what was really happening? How could the aver......more

My five star ratings are very few, but this one was a must, as I told everyone, with whom I came in contact while reading it, how well this book is written. This book is a true story about the author's aunt. He had access to letters and journals and interviewed numerous survivors. The book does not......more