Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
Audiobook7 hours
Dancing with the Enemy: My Family's Holocaust Secret
Written by Paul Glaser
Narrated by Christa Lewis and James Anderson Foster
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
The gripping story of the author's aunt, a Jewish dance instructor who was betrayed to the Nazis by the two men she loved, yet managed to survive WWII by teaching dance lessons to the SS at Auschwitz. Her epic life becomes a window into the author's own past and the key to discovering his Jewish roots.
Raised in a devout Roman Catholic family in the Netherlands, Paul Glaser was shocked to learn as an adult of his father's Jewish heritage. Grappling with his newfound identity and stunned by his father's secrecy, Paul set out to discover what happened to his family during World War II and what had caused the long-standing rift between his father and his estranged aunt, Rosie, who moved to Sweden after the war. Piecing together his aunt's wartime diaries, photographs, and letters, Paul reconstructed the dramatic story of a woman who was caught up in the tragic sweep of World War II.
Rosie Glaser was a magnetic force—hopeful, exuberant, and cunning. An emancipated woman who defied convention, she toured Western Europe teaching ballroom dancing to high acclaim, falling in love hard and often. By the age of twenty-five, she had lost the great love of her life in an aviation accident, married the wrong man, and sought consolation in the arms of yet another. Then the Nazis seized power. For Rosie, a nonpracticing Jew, this marked the beginning of an extremely dangerous ordeal. After operating an illegal dance school in her parents' attic, Rosie was betrayed by both her ex-husband and her lover, taken prisoner by the SS and sent to a series of concentration camps. But her enemies were unable to destroy her and, remarkably, she survived, in part by giving dance and etiquette lessons to her captors. Rosie was an entertainer at heart, and her vivacious spirit, her effervescent charm, and her incredible resourcefulness kept her alive amid horrendous tragedy. Of the twelve hundred people who arrived with her at Auschwitz, only eight survived. Dancing with the Enemy recalls an extraordinary life marked by love, betrayal, and fierce determination.
Raised in a devout Roman Catholic family in the Netherlands, Paul Glaser was shocked to learn as an adult of his father's Jewish heritage. Grappling with his newfound identity and stunned by his father's secrecy, Paul set out to discover what happened to his family during World War II and what had caused the long-standing rift between his father and his estranged aunt, Rosie, who moved to Sweden after the war. Piecing together his aunt's wartime diaries, photographs, and letters, Paul reconstructed the dramatic story of a woman who was caught up in the tragic sweep of World War II.
Rosie Glaser was a magnetic force—hopeful, exuberant, and cunning. An emancipated woman who defied convention, she toured Western Europe teaching ballroom dancing to high acclaim, falling in love hard and often. By the age of twenty-five, she had lost the great love of her life in an aviation accident, married the wrong man, and sought consolation in the arms of yet another. Then the Nazis seized power. For Rosie, a nonpracticing Jew, this marked the beginning of an extremely dangerous ordeal. After operating an illegal dance school in her parents' attic, Rosie was betrayed by both her ex-husband and her lover, taken prisoner by the SS and sent to a series of concentration camps. But her enemies were unable to destroy her and, remarkably, she survived, in part by giving dance and etiquette lessons to her captors. Rosie was an entertainer at heart, and her vivacious spirit, her effervescent charm, and her incredible resourcefulness kept her alive amid horrendous tragedy. Of the twelve hundred people who arrived with her at Auschwitz, only eight survived. Dancing with the Enemy recalls an extraordinary life marked by love, betrayal, and fierce determination.
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Reviews for Dancing with the Enemy
Rating: 3.9545454545454546 out of 5 stars
4/5
22 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fantastic! Nothing could keep Rosie down! She was something else. A real firecracker! Thanks Paul for the story!!!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The author of this biography was raised in the Catholic faith. He learned of his Jewish background as an adult, and of his aunt Rosie, who survived the Holocaust. Glaser did not have a relationship with his aunt because of a rift between his father and his aunt. However, he had access to her diaries and letters, and they form the basis for this biography.
Rosie was an unconventional woman. She was attractive and had a strong personality. She ignored the Jewish curfew and refused to wear a yellow star on her clothes, and she got away with this for quite some time. When she eventually ended up in work camps and concentration camps, she was able to negotiate with camp officials and with other prisoners to get what she needed, whether that was extra food, warmer clothing, and better living conditions. She didn't seem to have scruples about sleeping with officers if that's what it took to get what she most needed. Rosie survived.
I've read about the Dutch resistance and Dutch citizens like Corrie ten Boom and Miep Gies who hid Jews during the Holocaust. This book tells a different story of Dutch who betrayed Jews and the Dutch government's cooperation with the Germans.
For me, the saddest part of Rosie's story is the rift that grew between Rosie and her brother (the author's father). They both survived, but it seemed that neither could forgive the other for the way they survived.