"When Adolf Hitler paraded into Vienna on March 11, 1938, Egon Schwarz was fifteen years old. In Refuge: Chronicle of a Flight from Hitler, he describes his family's remarkable escape through Bratislava, Prague, and Paris, across the Atlantic through the Panama Canal and finally to Bolivia, where the Viennese family experiences a culture shock of Andean altitude.

As the author comes of age, one picaresque adventure follows the next, until fate and fixity of purpose finally bring him to settle in the United States, where he became an internationally recognized scholar and Professor of German. Since retiring from Washington University in St. Louis, Egon Schwarz has continued his peripatetic life, lecturing at universities around the world. His recent research has focused increasingly on Austrian and Jewish themes."--BOOK JACKET.