Audiobook7 hours
Dancing with the Enemy: My Family's Holocaust Secret
Written by Paul Glaser
Narrated by James Anderson Foster and Christa Lewis
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.
Related to Dancing with the Enemy
Related audiobooks
The Old Brown Suitcase Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Girl Called Renee Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sabina: In the Eye of the Storm Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chasing Portraits: A Great-Granddaughter's Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tin Ring - A Remarkable Memoir of Love and Survival in the Holocaust (unabridged) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAn Eye for an Eye: Chronicles of an Obsession Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Tears Over Russia: A Search for Family and the Legacy of Ukraine's Pogroms Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My Dear Ones: One Family and the Final Solution Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shoes of the Shoah: The Tomorrow of Yesterday Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Among the Reeds: The true story of how a family survived the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rescued from the Ashes: The Diary of Leokadia Schmidt, Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeft to the Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Bargain That Broke Adolf Hitler and Saved My Mother Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lalechka Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Ways of Providence In My Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Remembering Ravensbrück: Holocaust to Healing Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I Belong to Vienna: A Jewish Family's Story of Exile and Return Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Children's Block: A Novel Based on the True Story of an Auschwitz Survivor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The untold story of Nonna Bannister Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Renia's Diary: A Holocaust Journal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor: Classmate of Anne Frank Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lives Reclaimed: A Story of Rescue and Resistance in Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Family's Survival: The true story of how the Shwartz family escaped the Nazis and survived the Holocaust Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When Time Stopped: A Memoir of My Father's War and What Remains Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Women's Biographies For You
The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncultured: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wild Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy—and the Sister She Betrayed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eat, Pray, #FML Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love, Pamela: A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychopath: A True Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bigamist: The True Story of a Husband's Ultimate Betrayal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything Beautiful in Its Time: Seasons of Love and Loss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Own It All: How to Stop Waiting for Change and Start Creating It. Because Your Life Belongs to You. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories We Tell: Every Piece of Your Story Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What My Mother and I Don't Talk About: Fifteen Writers Break the Silence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Excuse Me While I Disappear: Tales of Midlife Mayhem Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Are the Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Blue Tattoo: The Life of Olive Oatman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We're Going to Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated, and True Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rabbit: The Autobiography of Ms. Pat Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Own Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Dancing with the Enemy
Rating: 3.9523809523809526 out of 5 stars
4/5
21 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.