Author Archives: Refugee Tales

This post is the tragic heart of Refugee Tales. It is the story of what happened to my maternal grandparents, Olga and Bruno Guttmann, who never made it out of Vienna as the Nazi regime closed in on the Jews. … Continue reading →

Correction:  Youtube address for The Cummington Story should read: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HHbC7o8xOQ

    After D-day in June of 1944, when American troops began to move through Europe, the U.S. Office of War Information set up an Overseas Film Division to produce a series of short documentaries.  As one of the directors described … Continue reading →

   At the end of my last post, my father’s sister Helen and her husband had acquired a car soon after the end of their arduous journey to the U.S. Judicious financial arrangements made beforehand had clearly eased their entry. … Continue reading →

Until the spring of 1940, the members of my family who had arrived in England believed they were safe from Hitler’s designs on the Jews. From April on, however, as the German leader, in a matter of months, successfully invaded … Continue reading →

My father was obsessed with the news. He interrupted meals to listen to the broadcast of WQXR’s bulletins “every hour on the hour.” He read the The New York Times daily and fussed about keeping the pages in correct order … Continue reading →

With the marriage of my parents, Sylvia Guttmann to Oskar Spitzer, on August 28,1937, the families I have been tracing on this blog are joined. Thanks to the success of their immediate forebears, the first generation of emancipated Austrian Jews, … Continue reading →

The shifting world of postwar Europe was the background of my parents’ youth–Oscar Spitzer born in 1904, Sylvia Guttmann in 1915.  As described in my last post, the Spitzer family had to adjust to becoming citizens of another country– the … Continue reading →