"In August 1938, eleven-year-old David W. Weiss, together with his parents and his sister, escaped from his native Austria. Their dramatic train ride to freedom was aided by the older brother of a schoolmate, a Nazi militiaman who was employed by the Austrian railway system. For fifty-six years, Weiss, an eminent biomedical scientist first in the United States and then in Israel, held a deep and abiding enmity for everything Austrian and German.

When he was persuaded by the sincerity of a small Christian community in his hometown of Wiener Neustadt to journey there in 1995 with other former Jewish residents for a "Week of Return," Weiss experienced a rush of clashing emotions. How, within the context of Jewish history and personal Jewish commitment, was it possible to integrate the searing memories of collective evil with the extraordinary human bond that he had begun to form with individual Austrian men and women?

Reluctant Return is the gripping account of what Weiss experienced during those days, of the remarkable Christian group that brought it about, and of the visit's surprising echoes and consequences."--BOOK JACKET.