The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World (Kati Marton)

I've heard that Hungary boasts the most Nobel prize winners, which for a relatively small country is quite impressive. But I had no idea of the impact a select nine Hungarians had on the world, forced to flee their native country because of antisemitism and the events leading to World War II. Author Kati Marton interweaves narratives of these individuals' lives, their personal motivations, hardship, romance, defeat, and the sweet recognition of their accomplishments into a story of our own history. Names easily recognized to us like Laurence Olivier or Ingrid Bergman, Albert Einstein, and Theodore Roosevelt are influenced by these men. Perhaps as striking is their ability to surpass enormous obstacles to become part of history--loss of family, friends, the antisemitism that displaced them from their native Budapest, and a language that isolated them linguistically from the rest of the world. Scientists Edward Teller, John von Neumann, Leo Szilard, and Eugene Wigner led the movement to develop the nuclear weapon in advance of Hitler. These scientists also worked to develop the computer. Major film makers Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) and Alexander Korda (The Third Man) created legendary movies, directing Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, for example in Casablanca. Photographers Robert Capa and Andre Kertesz's photos live on; Capa's fuzzy D-Day photo on Omaha Beach is recreated in Steven Speilberg's film: Saving Private Ryan. Capa's love affair with Ingrid Bergman, his war photography that brought the war to the public in the U.S. Kertesz's photos that captured emotion in a single moment.And writer Arthur Koestler (Darkness at Noon) prophesied the dictatorial state even before the Soviet Union had expanded its reach to his homeland: Hungary.