The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World

I just finished reading The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World by Kati Marton. The book is primarily profiles of these people:

• Leo Szilard, who is credited with the conception of the nuclear chain reaction in 1933, who was central to the creation of the first nuclear reactor, who is perhaps the person most responsible for convincing the U.S. government to develop the atomic bomb during World War II, and who was an important peace activists including a founding member of the Pugwash Movement (which eventually was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize).
• Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize winning physicist who also played an important role in the development of the atom bomb by the United States.
• Edward Teller, who played a role in the development of the atomic bomb, a central role in the development of the hydrogen bomb, and who was a key person in supporting the development of missile defense systems. He was also very influential in atomic energy and national security policy for many years. A co-founder and director of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
• John von Neumann, one of the greatest mathematicians who ever lived, who contributed also to physics, statistics, and economics (game theory), who played a key role in the invention of the modern digital computer and pioneered in developing programs for the use of the computer, and who played an important role in the development of the atom bomb. He was a founding member of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Study, a member of the Atomic Energy Commission and a consultant with numerous governmental and business organizations.
• Alexander Korda, a leading figure in the British film industry who founded London Films. His best known films were The Private Life of Henry VIII, The Four Feathers, and The Third Man. Merton describes his film, That Hamilton Woman, as effective in its effort to encourage the American public to support entry into World War II by sugar coating the message in a strong and popular film.
• Michael Curtiz, the director of 173 films, who also produced and acted in a few films. One of Hollywood's greatest film makers who is perhaps best known for Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Mildred Pierce.
• Arthur Koestler, a prolific author best known for Darkness at Noon, a novel credited with being one of the most influential anti-Soviet books ever written.
• Robert Capa, perhaps the greatest combat photographer who ever lived, who covered the Spanish Civil War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, World War II across Europe, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and the First Indochina War (in which he was the first photographer to be killed). He was a cofounder of Magnum Photos, the first cooperative agency for worldwide freelance photographers.
• Andre Kertesz, a photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay.

In an epilogue, Merton adds three more recent Hungarian emigres: Imre Kertesz, Nobel laureate author; Andy Grove, founder and president of Intel; and George Soros, financier and philanthropist.

Capa's iconic Falling Soldier from the Spanish Civil War

In 1867 Hungary was granted a degree of autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and a law was passed emancipating Jews. Budapest, the new capital grew from three towns to a city of a million people, and Jews streamed in from other regions representing 1/5th of the city's population by 1900. An exceptional educational system existed and was open to Jewish children. However, in the aftermath of World War I, on which Hungary had been on the losing side, economic conditions worsened, a proto-fascist regime took power, and anti-Semitism became general. Some of the more cosmopolitan Jews had the good sense or good luck to emigrate west to Austria, Germany, France and England. As the Nazi's rose to power in the 1930s, some moved on to the United States.

A central point to the book is the success that its protagonists had and the huge contributions that they made to the countries that offered them refuge. Of course, these were geniuses, and their gifts were nurtured by great training. Merton points out that they learned survival skills facing discrimination and surviving conflict that many were able to transfer to their civilian roles.

The background to the success of the protagonists in this book is the holocaust, and more generally the economic disaster of the 1930s, the rise of Communism and Fascism, and the devastation caused by the wars between democratic and authoritarian governments. The long dark period in Hungary after its short period in the sun was especially hard on those who lived in that country.

My parents both immigrated to the United States, albeit from Ireland and England so that they did not have to learn a new language as adults. (Indeed, both my parents, my wife, my son and I have each lived in three countries during our lives.) I can identify with the emotional impact both of being an outsider in the culture in which one lives, and of missing the place in which you grew up and your family and friends. My parents, not nearly as great as Merton's subjects, were among the lucky ones who were drawn more by the attraction of the place that they moved to than by treats of remaining in the place from which they had left. Merton's characters range from a happy immigrant to a dissatisfied, all-but stateless refugee.

I grew up in Los Angeles and I had some experience of the brilliance of the Jewish community in that city and of the brilliance of the European refugee community after World War II. As a child I knew people who knew and associated with Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Thomas Mann. The films by and staring European immigrants were an important part of my life. Still, Marton's book was a useful reminder of how much I personally owe these people.

I have long been aware of the contributions of Hungarian refugees, but the book made me wonder how many other nations have sent comparable numbers of their most brilliant people into exile. How much did Hungary and Europe lose by driving its most productive citizens away while killing millions of others.

The book is organized by epoch, pre-WWI, the inter war period, WWII, and the post war period. In each period, it follows the events in the lives of each of its characters. It works in part because these are such well known figures. The organization brings out the driving force of world events on the lives of these Hungarian refugees.

Merton writes well, and this short book is an easy read, worth the effort.

André Kertész, “Elizabeth and I, Paris”, 1931