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"[A] memoir of one couple's escape from the Nazis ...[full of]
ingenuity and determination." Michael R. Marrus, Professor of
Holocaust Studies, University of Toronto At the beginning of World
War II, the US and other countries erected a "paper wall"-- a
bureaucratic maze that prevented all but a small number of Jewish
refugees from emigrating from Nazi-Occupied Europe.When the World
Closed Its Doors tells the true story of a young couple who, like
many European Jews, were caught between the Nazis and the "paper
wall". Ida Piller-Greenspan was married in Belgium on May 9, 1940.
That night the Nazis invaded Belgium. She and her new husband
survived the next four months hitchhiking through occupied
territory, hiding in barns and tunnels, dodging bombs near Dunkirk,
crossing the Pyrenees on foot, and enduring weeks with little food
and no money. Ultimately they arrived in Portugal, certain they
would find sanctuary somewhere in the world beyond Europe's
borders. But their trials were not over. It took nine anxious
months for them to find a country that would let them in -- months
spent watching in horror as most refugees were forced back to
uncertain lives in their home countries. Forty years later, Ida, an
accomplished artist, created a pictorial diary of their journey.
Her prints -- lyrical, haunting, and compelling -- are accompanied
by a page-turning narrative that bears witness to this treacherous
and largely forgotten chapter of World War II history.
"[A] memoir of one couple's escape from the Nazis ...[full of]
ingenuity and determination." Michael R. Marrus, Professor of
Holocaust Studies, University of Toronto At the beginning of World
War II, the US and other countries erected a "paper wall"-- a
bureaucratic maze that prevented all but a small number of Jewish
refugees from emigrating from Nazi-Occupied Europe.When the World
Closed Its Doors tells the true story of a young couple who, like
many European Jews, were caught between the Nazis and the "paper
wall". Ida Piller-Greenspan was married in Belgium on May 9, 1940.
That night the Nazis invaded Belgium. She and her new husband
survived the next four months hitchhiking through occupied
territory, hiding in barns and tunnels, dodging bombs near Dunkirk,
crossing the Pyrenees on foot, and enduring weeks with little food
and no money. Ultimately they arrived in Portugal, certain they
would find sanctuary somewhere in the world beyond Europe's
borders. But their trials were not over. It took nine anxious
months for them to find a country that would let them in -- months
spent watching in horror as most refugees were forced back to
uncertain lives in their home countries. Forty years later, Ida, an
accomplished artist, created a pictorial diary of their journey.
Her prints -- lyrical, haunting, and compelling -- are accompanied
by a page-turning narrative that bears witness to this treacherous
and largely forgotten chapter of World War II history.
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