Destiny's journey

by Alfred Döblin

"Alfred Doblin, author of the classic novel Berlin Alexanderplatz, has been hailed by Kafka and Gunter Grass as one of the greatest German writers of this century. In this stunning autobiography, Doblin recounts his nightmarish flight from the Nazis."--BOOK JACKET. "As Jewish refugees living in Paris, Doblin and his family were forced to flee Hitler's armies in 1940. This story of his tortured journey through France, Spain, Portugal, and finally to America reads like an adventure novel. Here is Doblin carrying heavy luggage and a manuscript along the dusty roads of France, traveling in a cattle car, stuck in one obscure provincial town after another, in and out of refugee camps, constantly out of money. He had left Paris after his family, and only after desperately searching for them are they reunited. Fortunately, when it comes to their final escape from Europe through Marseille and Lisbon, their passports are prolonged, exit visas granted, and an unknown French civil servant provides