Irma's Passport - by Catherine Ehrlich (Paperback)

About the Book

After two European cataclysms disrupt the life of Irma--the wife of Vienna's Jewish city representative--she escapes to London and New York, where she restores her life by saving child refugees. This true story, told in Irma's words and narrated by her granddaughter, reveals an inspiring woman who used languages as her passport to a safer, more hopeful world.

Book Synopsis

Golden-haired Irma grew up in Imperial Austria believing that wars and prejudice were fading-only to have her life upended and her identity challenged to the core by two world wars.

History confronts Irma time and again. Arch-Nazi Adolf Eichmann plays a twisted role in the fate of her prominent Jewish politician husband, Jakob Ehrlich, and her own escape from Vienna. After arriving with her son first in London and then in New York, Irma encounters a dazzling world of power elites, including Chaim Weizmann (the first president of Israel), British parliamentarians, and other renowned figures, and ultimately gets a chance to bring relief to refugees-an effort to which she devotes herself wholeheartedly.

Narrated alternately by Irma's granddaughter, Catherine, and Irma herself, this account of Irma's journey from Czech country girl to grande dame in New York is a riveting, intimate tale of aspiration, activism, and world-changing national movements. Part personal memoir, part historical drama, Irma's Passport is ultimately a tribute to human dignity, a story in which one woman can restore the lives of many and courage is a victory in itself.

Review Quotes

2021 Foreword Indie Finalist in Biography & Memoir

"An extraordinary story."
-Seattle Book Review

"Working from her grandma's journals but providing insights and context throughout, the author chronicles the indomitable Irma's war-years journey from a small town in Bohemia through Prague, Vienna, London, and New York. This is far more than a Holocaust story. Irma's granddaughter has given us historically significant testimony wrapped in a family tale, and an inspiring and satisfying story of a life of service."
-Scott D. Seligman, author of The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902: Immigrant Housewives and the Riots that Shook New York City

"Using her grandmother's personal memoir as a starting point, Catherine Ehrlich gives us a beautifully composed and deeply researched story of a matriarch and a family caught up in the dark web of Nazi Europe. It is nothing short of miraculous that her family history and mine unfolded in the same apartment building in Vienna in a way that encapsulates the fate of Jewish culture trapped in the vise of fascism. In addition to a gripping narrative, what emerges in these pages is a profile of strength and resilience that will inspire today's readers, young and old, and stand proudly in the literature of the Holocaust."
-Julie Metz, author of Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother's Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind

"A very sensitive, well-written and -researched book about the fate of a prominent Jewish family in Vienna in 1938 and beyond."
-Evelyn Adunka, historian, Vienna

"Gripping, poignant, and inspiring, this true tale illustrates how pride can help to power through suffering and create meaning. Author Catherine Ehrlich, drawing heavily on vivid memoirs written by her grandmother, has added depth of research, beauty of language, and a haunting present-day perspective to the life of an extraordinary woman of Vienna during wartime and beyond."
-Dori Jones Yang, author of When the Red Gates Opened: A Memoir of China's Reawakening

"This beautifully written combination of a Holocaust survivor's memoir with the recollections and research of her granddaughter captures the charms of fin-de-siècle Bohemia and the devastation that followed. Imaginative, compelling, clear, and touching, the narrative of an emancipated and educated woman's heartbreak during the First World War, new love and hope in 1920s Vienna, despair again as the Nazis closed in, and escape with her only son to America illustrates the human cost of intolerant and violent politics in Central Europe. Irma's Passport, a new addition to the vast literature on fascism and anti-Semitism, deserves attention from readers of all ages."
-Jeremy King, Professor of History, Mt. Holyoke College

"A gripping and well-written story about a courageous woman living between the world wars. Irma is a spitfire of a woman who attended university when only 4 percent of students were women, and who shared an English literature class with Franz Kafka-historical figures pop out like gifts in the story. The book also provides a window into the assimilated life of the Jews of Bohemia, early Zionism, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust. Your foreknowledge prepares you for what is coming but, inspired by Irma, you hold your breath and read on."
-Leora Krygier, author of Do Not Disclose: A Memoir of Family Secrets Lost and Found

"What an absolutely amazing and fascinating memoir."

-Story Circle

"Irma's Passport is at once a multi-layered personal journey, chronicle of a momentous time, and story of human triumph over state-sponsored evil. The book is both historical and immediate, as the author uses her grandmother's journal entries as the fulcrum on which to rest the book. At one point Vera Weizmann, wife of diplomat Chaim Weizmann, says, 'You