Imprint
- Two Roads
- Two Roads
- Two Roads
Biography: historical, political & military, History, History: specific events & topics, Second World War
The extraordinary true story of progressive schoolteacher, Anna Essinger, the woman who defied Hitler, smuggling her school and its pupils from Nazi Germany to the safety of England
'DEVASTATINGLY AFFECTING' THE TIMES
'EMOTIONALLY COMPELLING' OBSERVER
In 1933, as Hitler came to power, schoolteacher Anna Essinger hatched a daring plan: to smuggle all her pupils out of Nazi Germany under the nose of the Gestapo.
The - mostly Jewish - children who escaped found a safe haven in Anna's new school, a rundown manor house in southern England, until the outbreak of war in 1939 raised terrifying new dangers.
Despite her growing blindness, Anna continued rescuing children throughout the war. Many had lost their families and witnessed unimaginable horrors. But she was determined to instil the belief in all those under her care that there was still a life worth fighting for.
'By turns heartbreaking and inspiring, I could not stop reading this remarkable book'
JOSH IRELAND, author of Churchill & Son
'A celebration of what the human spirit can achieve'
RABBI JULIA NEUBERGER
Praise for The School That Escaped the Nazis
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A devastatingly affecting book. [Cadbury's] chapters alternate between the nightmarish experiences of Jewish children in the Third Reich, and a kind of earthly paradise. . . Bunce Court! I keep saying the name to myself because it encapsulates all that is gentle and comically charming about wartime England. - The Times
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Emotionally compelling. . . Cadbury has constructed a lively and compelling narrative - Observer
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What gives this book its immediacy and freshness is the fact that Deborah Cadbury has spoken to so many of the witnesses to a phenomenal story. The woman who brought an entire school to Kent from Germany, and saved so many children from the Nazis, was a completely heroic figure. This story is an uplifting reminder of how courage, high virtue and intelligence can overcome even the most appalling odds. At many points, with tearful eyes, I cheered - it is a book which stirs up deep emotion, and high admiration, for the author as well as its subject. - A N WILSON
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A moving and meticulously documented account of how one woman first rescued and then educated hundreds of Jewish children from the horrors of Nazi Europe. A powerful story of hope at a time of tragedy and one which even though set more than eighty years ago sadly has a resonance today. - ALEX GERLIS, author of Best of Our Spies and Agent in Berlin
Deborah Cadbury
Deborah Cadbury is the author of ten acclaimed books including Queen Victoria's Matchmaking, Princes at War, Chocolate Wars, The Dinosaur Hunters and Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, for which her accompanying BBC series received a BAFTA nomination and which was a Sunday Times bestseller. Before turning to writing full-time she worked for thirty years as a BBC TV producer and executive producer. She has won numerous international awards, including an Emmy.
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