Product Description

When his entire family were deported to concentration camps in
1942, the young Jewish man Cioma Schönhaus avoided the authorities and
remained in Berlin. He turned his talent for graphic design to forgery,
creating false identity papers for Jews. His forgeries were extraordinary,
and he would painstakingly recreate each of the twelve long and twenty-four
short feathers of the German Imperial Eagle so that an identity pass
withstood the scrutiny of Nazi officials. His forgeries saved hundreds of
Jewish lives. The twenty-year old Schönhaus was breathtakingly bold: he
talked his way out of an arrest, complained about the drunken behaviour of
a policeman and never stopped cycling despite the ban for Jews. Eventually
the Gestapo put him on their wanted list and posted pictures of him around
Berlin. Schönhaus realised he had to escape to Switzerland. He abandoned a
plan to jump on a goods train as too dangerous, opting instead to cycle one
thousand miles to safety.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56997 in Books
• Published on: 2008-01-07
• Binding: Paperback
• 200 pages

The Times
`It is a remarkable story ... Schonhaus's courage and lack of bitterness, above all, show our species at its best'

Mail on Sunday, Simon Shaw
`A wonderfully exuberant story of survival against all the odds'

Metro
"This terrific memoir tells a story of resistance and ingenuity in
Berlin during World War II"