The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot: Oral Histories Exploring Five Hundred Years in the Paradoxical Relationship of Spain and the Jews

by Trudi Alexy

Book Overview

These thrilling and harrowing first-hand stories of fellow-survivors and their Spanish rescuers vividly reveal the unknown history of the Jews who found asylum from Hitler's Final Solution under... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671778161
• ISBN13: 9780671778163
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Interviews if you will.

This is a good book, all the stories gathered and told really paint the picture of what people went through trying to escape the Holocust, and how Spain really did help them.

Heartbreaking Title

Once you read this book,the title makes sense. The author was a holocust survivor and was so grateful and impressed with Spain that she felt compelled to go back to see if others felt the same. Lot's of interviews in this book regarding that perticular era. What a twist for Spain!Excellent Read!

Five Parts Catharsis Three Parts History

During World War II Spain gave safety to nearly one million Jews. Franco, the Fascist dictator, gave the order to the Spanish diplomatic corps, "Bring our Jews home." As a result Jews, stateless for lack of papers, who could not speak a word of Ladino, were given transit visas to Spain until the Nazi's stopped honoring papers of any kind. Then the boarder guards simply looked the other way when Jews ran their border crossings.Today, there is still a Marano community in the Catholic church. These are the descendants of "conversos," Jews forced into baptism by Ferdinand and Isabella's zeal to unite Spain, who have retained a jewish identity.This introspective on one young Jewish girl who survived the holocaust is well worth the reading. It is positive, even inspirational and always interesting.

A compelling and captivating book for everyone.

An excellent book for college students wanting to learn more about the history of the Jewish people, yet be entertained.

This is a book plenty of Humanism

This book shows readers how Spain and the Spanish people contributed to save the lives of thousand of jews, particularly during the Second World War. It should definitely be read by anyone concerned with any sort of racial discrimination.