Description: Five months after the author's tenth birthday Hitler entered Austria and it became clear to her parents that, even as a Catholic, she was Jewish according to Nazi criteria, and if she were to survive she would have to leave her native country. Transported to England by English Quakers she was lodged with a friend of her family. Feeling very alone Elisabeth had immediately to start learning a new language and to accomodate herself to quite a different culture. Her diary, which she was given by her nanny before she left Austria, shows her struggle in getting used to this new environment. At the age of twelve, just as she was getting used to life in England she was put on a ship to America. Only when she was finally reunited with her parents and brother did the diary entries cease. Fifty years later, Elisabeth Orsten shares the diary with us. Full of personal feelings and private incident, these memories constitute an intimate account of the problems a refugee child faces when suddenly placed alone into a different and unfamiliar world.

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