"Elisabeth Freundlich's memoir The Traveling Years begins with a description of the author's childhood against the backdrop of the final decade of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the turbulent years of the First Republic and Austrofascism. The second section concerns the Freundlich family's flight from Vienna after the Anschluss, which took them first to Paris, then over the Pyrenees to Lisbon, and finally to New York.

An emigrant activist herself, Freundlich relates with modesty, humor, and empathy her experiences as a refugee and her encounters with such figures as Otto Heller, Friedrich Adler, and Bertolt Brecht. Concluding with a description of the difficulties Freundlich faced upon her return to Vienna in the early 1950s, Freundlich's chronicle reaffirms her commitment to using literature as a means to combat fascism and as a memorial to its otherwise forgotten victims."--BOOK JACKET.