Author: Dr. Willian B. Stanford
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-0-595-43311-7

Click Here To Purchase Lizzi & Fredl: A Perilous Journey of Love and Faith

The events of the years leading up to and during WWII are a fascination with historians and history buffs still today. It is a sort of morbid curiosity; how could such evil ever exist and how could whole nations fall under its sway? In truth, many people in the occupied countries did not agree with Hitler and they had no choice but to run for their lives. This book tells of two such people.

Alfred and Alice Steiner, Fredl and Lizzi, were living normal lives in Vienna, Austria when the Nazis came and destroyed everything. Fredl was a master jeweller and Lizzi was a talented seamstress and their life had been going well. When Fredl received orders to report to a Nazi factory to help build timing devices for their bombs, they knew they had to leave. They would never assist the Nazis but there was another issue. Lizzi’s family was Jewish. They didn’t practice their faith, but that didn’t matter to Hitler. In the end, Fredl and Lizzi along with his two brothers and their wives fled Austria.

However, they didn’t run far enough. They made it to France, but it was taken by the Nazis as well. For the next seven years, Fredl was kept in various work camps as Lizzi struggled to free him. There was always danger, the Nazis were hunting down people who had fled the occupation in other countries to force them back to be interrogated and killed. Many times Fredl and Lizzi almost died and were saved in the last moments.

This is a wonderful blend of novel and history book rolled into one. It is an accurate account of the trials of this couple as they fought for survival and not at all fiction. But; it is not at all dry. Stanford creates the real life characters of his parents with such vibrancies and tenderness that the reader cannot help but become as involved with these two as they become with the couple of a well-written fiction.

As a historical account it is very detailed. Here is not a general focus of what battles happened at what time. Instead, readers are given an account of the daily life of people caught in the middle of the hell. Everyday issues like having to register at every address change, learning a foreign language while keeping your true nationality secret, and continually walking past soldiers that could send you to die in a concentration camp are explained. Often historical accounts leave out the life of the common man but this story is centred not on the war but on the survival of two determined people.

This wonderful book gives readers a chance to relive the bravery of people caught in this hell. They are not called `The Greatest Generation’ lightly, it is an honor they earned.

Click Here To Purchase Lizzi & Fredl: A Perilous Journey of Love and Faith