On the Run in Nazi Berlin A Memoir

BERLIN, 1942. The Gestapo arrest eighteen-year-old Bert Lewyn and his parents, sending the latter to their deaths and Bert to work in a factory making guns for the Nazi war effort. Miraculously tipped off the morning the Gestapo round up all the Jews who work in the factories, Bert goes underground. He finds shelter sometimes with compassionate civilians, sometimes with people who find his skills useful and sometimes in the cellars of bombed-out buildings. Without proper identity papers, he survives as a hunted Jew in the flames and terror of Nazi Berlin in part by successfully mimicking non-Jews, even masquerading as an SS officer. But the Gestapo are hot on his trail…

Before World War II, 160,000 Jews lived in Berlin. By 1945, only 3,000 remained alive. Bert was one of the few, and his thrilling memoir—from witnessing the famous 1933 book burning to the aftermath of the war in a displaced persons camp—offers an unparalleled depiction of the life of a runaway Jew caught in the heart of the Nazi empire.
 

Bert Lewyn (1923–2016) was born Dagobert Lewin in Berlin. He emigrated to the United States in 1949 and settled in Atlanta, Georgia. He Americanized his name and started a family. His daughter-in-law, Bev Saltzman Lewyn, who worked as a researcher for CNN, persuaded him to tell his story; together they made shocking discoveries about his history through assiduous investigation.