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Rating: 
Summary: A riveting story of a little-known part of Holocaut history
Review: Alexy was a child in Prague, in 1939. When World War II broke out, her father suddenly announced that the family was leaving, and that they would be baptized as Catholics. Up to that point, the author had not even known that her family was Jewish. From Prague, they fled to France, and then to Spain.
Years later, after she was living in America, she learned that many Jews had fled to Spain during the Holocaust, but that most had not converted or hidden their Jewishness.
As she began to trace her roots, she discovered the irony of Jews seeking protection in a country that, centuries before, and persecuted and expelled them.
There are a couple of books here, fighting for supremacy!
The first book is about how and why Spain opened its borders to Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.
"The irrefutable fact remains that, although the presence of Jews placed the whole country at risk of being drawn into another ar or occupied by Hitler's forces, Fascist Spain, both officially and unofficially, accepted thousands of foreign Ashkenazic Jews within its borders and allowed them to remain until they were able to secure residence elsewhere."
Why? The question is probably unanswerable, though Alexy tries her best. Guilt over the expulsions of 1492? Maybe, but this does not account for the welcome to Ashkenazic, as well as Sephardic, Jews. Maybe Franco had Jewish ancestors? There's no proof of that. A political decision in case the Allies won? Perhaps, but in a country devastated economically by the Civil War, Spain gave much. One interesting suggestion is that because of the expulsion, and the concomitant absence of a Jewish population, Spain did not develop the kind of anti-Semitic attitudes seen in other European countries.
Whatever the reason, the fact remains that thousands owe their lives to an official blind eye, and open Spanish arms.
Alexy begins by explaining her quest, her need to understand her own family history that sent her to Spain, and to the New York archives of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ("the Joint"), the organization that was responsible for helping stateless Jewish refugees in Spain. She interviews several people who found, or whose parents found, a haven across the Pyrenees, and in the section called "The Rescuers" she writes of those, Jews and non-Jews, who provided the means to safety. People such as Lisa Fittko, who acted as a guide, and Renée Reichmann, who from Tangier arranged material support, and Spanish diplomats who told the Gestapo, "these are our Jews" and taught the children a few words of Spanish in case they should be challenged.
The next two parts seemed to me as though they should be in a different book. "The Reformers" writes of present-day liberalization of Spanish laws and attitudes about non-Catholics (not merely Jews). It's interesting but although it touches on some theories as to why Spain helped, it is really more focused on the present and seems out of place.
The same is true of the final section, about contemporary Marranos and other "secret Jews". This is a huge topic about which a whole book could, and should (and probably has, I'll have to look) be written. In fact, the subtitle of this book suggests that that's what it's about. But it isn't.
Either this book should have been much longer, and made into a history of Spain and the Jews (and that would be a seriously long book!), or it should have been shorter, and the last two parts saved to become another book or books.
But those are quibbles. This is a fascinating, and very personal, discussion of an unexpected and little-known part of the Holocaust.
Rating: 
Summary: Five Parts Catharsis Three Parts History
Review: During World War II Spain gave safety to nearly one million Jews. Franco, the Fascist dictator, gave the order to the Spanish diplomatic corps, "Bring our Jews home." As a result Jews, stateless for lack of papers, who could not speak a word of Ladino, were given transit visas to Spain until the Nazi's stopped honoring papers of any kind. Then the boarder guards simply looked the other way when Jews ran their border crossings.Today, there is still a Marano community in the Catholic church. These are the descendants of "conversos," Jews forced into baptism by Ferdinand and Isabella's zeal to unite Spain, who have retained a jewish identity. This introspective on one young Jewish girl who survived the holocaust is well worth the reading. It is positive, even inspirational and always interesting.
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Summary: A valuable addition to Holocaust literature about rescue
Review: Highly-readable account of Spain's indirect role during the Holocaust as many Jews sought escape to the West through Spain. There are interesting portraits of both the rescued and rescuers, with additional chapters on modern Spanish Jews and Marranos or Crypto-Jews of Spanish descent. Alexy did a great service bringing these stories to our attention as very few have thought of Jews in Spain beyond the Inquisition.
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Summary: Fascinating mix of heroism, personal histories and religion
Review: I found this book at my Jewish boyfriend's mother's house. She checked it out of the library as part of a Sephardic reading group. I started skimming through it and couldn't put it down, had to buy my own copy here on Amazon! Trudi Alexy and her family fled Czechoslovakia to escape the Germans and were chased through France and finally Spain before they felt safe. Spain, in spite of its history of ultra-conservative Catholicism, Inquisition, expulsion of the Jews, etc., was one of the few safe havens for Jews fleeing the Germans during WWII. I was surpised to find this out, since Franco was a part of the Axis powers, a rigid ultra-Catholic, a dictator, and a Fascist. But I guess he wasn't an anti-Semite, because he basically looked the other way when Jews began pouring into Spain illegally to escape being killed in the concentration camps of Occupied Europe, especially Vichy-controlled France, which practically did all they could to deliver the Jews over to the Germans, nasty anti-Semites that the French are. In contrast, Spain not only looked the other way when Jews came pouring over the border, in many cases Spanish diplomats would demand that arrested Jews in other countries be released to them as Spanish citizens, even in cases where the Jews were Ashkenaz, not even Sephardic! The Spanish Red Cross also made a great effort to get food, clothing and letters shipped to Jews in concentration camps in the rest of Europe, even as the International Red Cross did absolutely nothing to help. There are horrific stories from the survivors themselves, tales of fleeing the Nazis with only the clothes on their backs, of escaping concentration camps and struggling over the Pyrenees in mid-winter without even a proper coat. Tales of getting to Spain and turning themselves in to the police to find warm beds, food and even money provided for them by kind hearted Spaniards from all walks of life. Then there are stories from the people who smuggled them into Spain, the risks they took to save thousands upon thousands of people from certain death. And tales of the Secret Jews, or Marranos, or Crypto-Jews, who were forced to convert during the Inquisition, or who were expelled from Spain, and the constant threats that they faced. Many of them continued practicing their Jewish rituals in absolute secrecy, in most cases not even letting their children know that they were of Jewish blood until age 12, when they were less likely to slip and give the secret away to outsiders. Many Crypto-Jews live in Mexico and New Mexico today, their ancestors having arrived in the 1500's after the expulsion from Spain. The Inquisition follwed them to the New World, however, so they continued practicing the most minimal Jewish traditions, such as ritual prayer, in absolute secrecy. Trudi interviewed some people who only identified as Catholics, but had listened to an NPR show on the Crypto-Jews and identified ancient and distorted Jewish traditions that their own family practiced! These people were utterly shocked to find out that they were of Jewish ancestry. I don't personally see the big deal, but I guess if you're a major Christian, then you might think it's a bad thing. In most cases though, the families were not only aware of their Jewish ancestry, but fostered it in secret while living a public life of Catholicism. They would intermarry only amongst one another and kept to fairly tight-knit communities. I liked the stories of the people who escaped to Spain during WWII best, since they were so full of heroism and drama, but really the whole book was fascinating.
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Summary: Heartbreaking Title
Review: Once you read this book,the title makes sense. The author was a holocust survivor and was so grateful and impressed with Spain that she felt compelled to go back to see if others felt the same. Lot's of interviews in this book regarding that perticular era. What a twist for Spain! Excellent Read!
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Summary: Mezuzah and Madonna embrace
Review: Strange title, but it makes sense once you read the book. The author describes her personal journey in search of her Jewish roots, cut off when she left Prague. As a refugee she remained in Barcelona for two years. Survivors of nazi persecution who were saved by the lenient attitude of Spanish authorities at the time of Franco's dictatorship give their testimony. Evidence from Jewish international organizations is also given. The author then narrates the plight for survival of the "marranos" after the expulsion edict. Interesting reading, the author aims at exalting the attitude of Spain and its people. Further study and investigation is required, you might ask whether there are no survivors to narrate the other side of the story.
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Summary: A fascinating look at a little-known aspect of Jewish histor
Review: The author, who was hidden by Spaniards for two years during WWII, uses her own experience as a jumping-off point for a discussion of centuries of Spanish assistance in hiding and protecting Jews during times of persecution, notably during the SPanish Inquisition. While I have a fair grasp on Jewish history, I was astounded by the stories of these "secret Jews," known only to each other by things like the titular talisman (including a Jewish object like a mezuzah in a painting of a Madonna). The descendants of these secret Jews, the Marranos, are still with us today. This is a little-known aspect of Jewish history. As I kept turning the pages (and trust me, this is a page-turner), I kept saying "I didn't know that." Even if Jewish history is not a particular interest, the book is interesting both as general history and a fascinating narrative of the author's experiences and those of centuries of Marranos.
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Summary: Interviews if you will.
Review: This is a good book, all the stories gathered and told really paint the picture of what people went through trying to escape the Holocust, and how Spain really did help them.
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Summary: uncovering a new world
Review: wonderful revelation of a subculture... and a new angle on the history of Spain and its Jews. A hard-to-put-down book.
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