OUR SHARE OF MORNING

A sincere and softspoken account of one family's three year attempt to escape to freedom, from the time when Paul Burmetz, a scientist, his wife, Alice, and his two year old child- Mignon, left Vienna for Paris- which they entered illegally (without visas). Their mobility was somewhat restricted not only by the fact that Mignon- since birth- was in a plaster cast, but also by Burmetz not always reliable physical health. In Paris, as the German occupation threatened, he was taken into custody, worried over his family- left behind in the occupied city, but managed to join up with them in the so-called Free Zone, in Albi. While relatively secure for a time there, still there were touch and go incidents, then the probability that they were on the list of those to be deported to a concentration camp. Making their decision within a few hours, hiding out nearby overnight, returning to get necessary belongings- Mignon's carriage, they set off for Switzerland, by train and on foot. The account, which has been anxious until now, becomes fairly agonizing- as they make their way up the mountains and across, are returned by Swiss guards, risk crossing a second time, again helped by a kind family, they finally reach Lausanne and are given permanent asylum.... Burmetz tells his story quietly, gratefully, in personal terms and perhaps it will reach readers who have shied away from the more terrible ordeals of dislocation and persecution.