Frenchy

Book excerpt: On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Jeannette Marx lived in Cologne and was just twelve years old at the time. Still, she recalls being terribly frightened by the news. Her uncle, Benjamin Marx, a prominent Social Democrat in the Reichstag, knew Hitler posed a grave threat to German Jews. Before fleeing to London, Benjamin pleaded with Jeannette's father to leave Germany right away. Salomon refused. Like many other Germans at the time, he believed Hitler was "crazy" and would certainly not last. Nazi book burnings, physical attacks, and Kristallnacht, young Jeannette witnessed these traumatic events right where she lived. Forced to leave her family behind, this Jewish teenager barely escaped Germany on the Kindertransport. Not long after she arrived in London, she decided it was time to "get back at Hitler." Jeannette joined the World War II effort and signed on with the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service. When she was asked to choose an area to work in, she asked to be sent to the East End of the docks, where it was the worst. There, she would perform heroic acts of courage and valor as bombs fell all around. The sweet victory and celebration of Hitler's defeat would prove to be short-lived as Jeannette discovers the shocking truth about his Final solution. Had her parents and the rest of her family somehow escaped? Jeannette's own words, personal letters, and photographs, plus rare journal entries, illuminate and personalize this most difficult time in history.