From Hitler to Trujillo: In Search of a HomelandFrom Hitler to Trujillo is a memoir by a Holocaust survivor Alfredo Vorshirm. His gripping story embodies the Jewish European experience during and after World War II and dramatizes the events that impelled Vorshirm to the Dominican Republic at the height of the Trujillo dictatorship. Living in Belgium rather than Germany, the country of his birth, when World War II broke out, Vorshirm and his family found themselves imprisoned by the European Allies because they were Austrian-German enemies. Then he was imprisoned by the Germans when he was caught in a raid without legal identification papers and in possession of illegal foreign currency. After being held and tortured in a Gestapo jail for nearly a year, he joined the Italian partisans where he was wounded. He had become separated from his parents who went to Switzerland where they thought they would be safe. Eventually, he served with a unit of the US 82nd Airborne Division and took part in the liberation of Europe. After the war, searching for a homeland, circumstances caused him to choose residence in the Dominican Republic. Vorshirm served the Dominican Republic as a Senior Army Officer in a top post with the Technological Services of the Armed Forces, as a Representative to the UN in New York and Geneva, and as a diplomat in Belgium, until he was abruptly removed and ordered back to the Dominican Republic. For an author bio and photo, reviews and a reading sample, visit bosonbooks.com. |
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Page 12 - Latin maxim dura lex, sed lex (the law is harsh, but it is the law) best suited his personal behavior, and I could not imagine him acting otherwise.