The Lisbon Route: Entry and Escape in Nazi Europe [Hardcover]

A leisurely, story-filled account of life in Nazi-occupied Europes last open door to freedom. During World War II, the port city of Lisbon, in neutral Portugal, was the destination for a flood of refugees fleeing the Nazi terror who hoped to make their way to the United States and elsewhere. An estimated 100,000 or more refugees passed through the old-fashioned European capital, writes Weber (American Studies/Univ. of Notre Dame; News of Paris: American Journalists in the City of Light Between the Wars, 2006, etc.), often waiting for weeks or months for a place on a freighter, fishing boat or plane. At the same time, reporters, diplomats, spies, military leaders and others shuttled in and out freely, and the formerly sleepy city became a frenzied bazaar, charged with energy, conspiratorial feeling and moral uncertainty. . . . Based on newspaper accounts as well as diaries and letters, Webers book brings the wartime city to life, tracing the machinations of agents and double agents in bars and hotels; Varian Frys work on behalf of the International Rescue Committee to find safe passage for artists and intellectuals; and secret meetings where belligerents exchanged information. With the wars end, Prime Minister Antonio Salazars authoritarian government began promoting the country as a postwar tourist destination. An engaging . . . chronicle of a city that was 'a way into Europe as well as a way out.'During WWII, people hoping to escape Nazi-occupied Europe made their way to a city that was a gateway to the free world. Lisbon, Portugal, was an open city, politically neutral, which made it a prime destination for refugees. But getting there wasnt easy, and getting out of Lisbon wasnt a walk in the park, either. Weber explores the importance of the Lisbon route to freedom by focusing on the stories of men and women who used it, or who made it possible, people like Arthur Koestler, the Jewish writer who decided to get out of occupied Paris in 1940 (which he did by lc)