Named one of Book Riot's BEST BIOGRAPHIES OF 2022
The extraordinary true story of a courageous school principal who saw
the dangers of Nazi Germany and took drastic steps to save those in
harm's way
In 1933, the same year Hitler came to power, schoolteacher Anna Essinger
saved her small, progressive school from Nazi Germany. Anna had read
Mein Kampf and knew the terrible danger that Hitler's hate-fueled
ideologies posed to her pupils, so she hatched a courageous and daring
plan: to smuggle her school to the safety of England.
As the school she established in Kent, England, flourished despite the
many challenges it faced, the news from her home country continued to
darken. Anna watched as Europe slid toward war, with devastating
consequences for the Jewish children left behind. In time, Anna would
take in orphans who had given up all hope: the survivors of unimaginable
horrors. Anna's school offered these scarred children the love and
security they needed to rebuild their lives.
Featuring moving firsthand testimony from surviving pupils, and drawing
from letters, diaries, and present-day interviews, The School that
Escaped the Nazis is a dramatic human tale that offers a unique
perspective on Nazi persecution and the Holocaust. It is also the story
of one woman's refusal to allow her belief in a better world to be
overtaken by hatred and violence.
