By examining the lives and social dynamics of Jewish university students, Pickus shows how German Jews rearranged their self-images and redefined what it meant to be Jewish.

Our Only Hope is based on correspondence between Eddie Weisz, a German Jew who emigrated to the U.S. in 1938, and his family (father, mother, and brother) who remained behind, first in Berlin and then Prague. Like many German Jewish families, Eddie's parents sent their eldest child to America hoping that he could pave the way for the rest of the family to follow. The story is a deeply personal account of how the Nazi phenomenon affected a single family. It gives voice to victims of the Holocaust, people whose experiences are typically told through the eyes of survivors and perpetrators. Through this narrative, Our Only Hope illuminates an ironic and tragic dualism: the steady deterioration of life's circumstances for the Weisz family that is left behind, countered by the transformation of Eddie Weisz into an independent adult and American citizen.