Witness to the Storm: A Jewish Journey from Nazi Berlin to the 82nd Airborne, 1920–1945
About this audiobook
On June 6, 1944, Werner T. Angress parachuted down from a C-47 into German-occupied France with the 82nd Airborne Division. Nine days later, he was captured behind enemy lines and, concealing his identity as a German-born Jew, became a prisoner of war. Eventually, he was freed by US forces, rejoined the fight, and participated in the liberation of a concentration camp.
Although he was an American soldier, less than ten years before he had been an enthusiastically patriotic German-Jewish boy. Rejected and threatened by the Nazi regime, the Angress family fled to Amsterdam to escape persecution and death, and young Angress then found his way to the United States.
In Witness to the Storm, Angress weaves the spellbinding story of his life, including his escape from Germany, his new life in the United States, and his experiences in World War II. A testament to the power of perseverance and forgiveness, Witness to the Storm is the powerful tale of one man’s struggle to fight for and rescue the country that had betrayed him.
About the author
Werner T. Angress (1920–2010) was a German-Jewish refugee, WWII veteran, and professor of history; he taught European history at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, for twenty-five years. Werner Angress (then Tom) escaped Nazi Germany when he was seventeen and joined the US Army in 1941, serving as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, and making his first jump into Normandy on D-Day. He interrogated German prisoners at the French front lines and later at the Battle of the Bulge, and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service as well as the Purple Heart. Along with many articles, he published three books: Stillborn Revolution: The Communist Bid for Power in Germany, 1921-1923 (Princeton, 1963); Between Fear & Hope: Jewish Youth in the Third Reich (Columbia, 1988); and the German edition of his autobiography—Immer etwas abseits: Jugenderinnerungen eines judischen Berliners, 1920-1945 (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 2005). In 1988 he retired to Berlin, where he spoke frequently at schools and memorial sites about his youth under the Nazis. He continued to mentor students, and to use his skills as a teacher and writer to intervene on behalf of disadvantaged groups, including Turkish immigrants in Germany and East Germans after reunification.
Claire Bloom gained international fame in 1951 with her screen debut in Charles Chaplin’s motion picture Limelight. Among her many memorable films are Richard III, The Haunting, Look Back in Anger, and A Doll’s House.
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
