![]() ![]() The central plot of the novel is what happens to four characters, namely: Ruth Wesseman, a bohemian Jewess and intellectual married to non-jewish journalist Hans, Ruth’s cousin Dora, a firebrand, fearless pursuer of justice and freedom (the heroine of the novel) and Dora’s lover, the celebrated left-wing German playwright and agitator, Ernst Toller ![]() They all manage to obtain refugee visas in London, where despite the constant and very real risk of deportation, they continue to do what they can to plant stories in the British press about Hitler’s plans for rearmament and his viscious policies towards the Jews and others he deems undesirable. Not only are they Jewish intellectuals, but left-wing leaning and socialist – in complete opposition to all that the National Socialists (the Nazis) stand for. The story, as it unfolds inside the cover, is about a group of German refugees (all but one are Jews) who are forced to flee their homeland when Hitler rises to power in Germany in the early 1930s. The cover of the version I read shows a woman in a red coat walking past what looks like the Reichstag in Berlin, her reflection a red blur on the wet pavement. ![]() I’d been told and heard that this book was very good, but knew nothing at all about the subject matter, plot or characters. I read “All that I am” by Australian author Anna Funder purely on word-of-mouth. ![]()
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