Dancing with the Enemy

My Family's Holocaust Secret

De: Paul Glaser

Narrado por: James Anderson Foster, Christa Lewis

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 25, 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 1,200 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.

©2013 Paul Glaser (P)2018 Tantor

unbelievable

this book was so incredible and interesting and his aunt full of life and passion. I loved her optimistic attitude about life.

Amazing Unique

I loved this book because it was so raw and real! No hidden agendas, just real people.

Skip it!

Literally boring and the main character is so full of herself that your dislike of her will grow. And she is the alleged heroine. Slow, poor narration. Couldn't wait for it to end.

Good narrators is all

I've never disliked a main "character " so much as I do with Rosie. The female narrator sounds sweet but she's so manipulative and was called a slut. She was. The nephew that is searching for information for family information is irrelevant in this story and just a minor motivation for the whole story. It's interesting hearing the history and information but the characters (real people?) encouraged no empathy from me.