Ernst J Taussig

Man without a shadow Ernst J Taussig

This is a true account of one Jewish man who managed to elude the Gestapo, escape from SS custody, and on occasion even trap his captors. It takes place during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. It is a Holocaust story that reads like an edge-of-your-seat thriller, alternately harrowing and humorous. Above all it is a life-affirming testament to the indomitable human spirit. In his memoir Ernst J. Taussig portrays the intrepid life of a Jewish entrepreneur before, during, and after the Second-World-War. His odyssey takes him from a pampered life in imperial Vienna to being a destitute hunted man in Nazi Slovakia. The title refers to his years on the run, a phantom, a nonexistent person who can leave no shadow. Against enormous odds he manages to fulfill his vow to never be caught and as a result saves the lives of his wife and baby son from deportation to Auschwitz. After the war he rises from the ashes and becomes a millionaire again, only to lose his fortune to the communist takeover of his country and to various crooks who swindle him as he escapes, disheartened and penniless to Israel. He never recovers financially, but though not a Zionist to start with, in his new homeland he discovers for the first time a true sense of belonging, a place he can call home. His is a life-story that mirrors the turbulent times in which it unfolds, the worst and yet the most hopeful century in Jewish history. Written in Israel from the perspective of old age, the German manuscript lay unpublished for thirty five years. It is now being offered for the first time in an English translation by the author's son, Peter Elyakim Taussig.