Escape Home: Rebuilding a Life After the Anschluss - Paperback

by Charles Paterson (Author), Carrie Paterson (Editor), Hensley Peterson (Editor)

The story of a secular Jewish family uprooted by the Nazi occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia who flee Europe to reunite in post-war America to rebuild their lives. Based primarily on the memoir of modern architectural designer and Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice Charles Paterson (born Karl Schanzer), who was nine years old when the Nazi invasion reached Vienna, as well as newly uncovered documents and accounts of events found in letters between family members, the book is a riveting tale of discovery and coming to terms with a past that casts a long shadow.

"An engrossing saga, profusely illustrated and fully documented, the stuff that makes an intriguing feature film. I heartedly endorse it."
-- Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Former Director, The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives

"One of the more uplifting accounts of European émigré life that I have read in a long time.... It will touch you to tears right away, regardless of how many accounts of similar fates you believe to have studied and understood.... What a book!"
-- Volker M. Welter, author of Ernest L. Freud, Architect

Adopted by the Paterson family in Australia while their father Stefan made a harrowing escape through occupied France, it would be eight years, after much sorrow and loss, before Charles and his sister Doris would reunite their remaining small family in the United States.

After Charles and Stefan settle in Aspen, Colorado, amidst the snow-capped peaks that remind them of the Austrian Alps, Stefan becomes a high school teacher known for his humor and adventure stories while Charles teaches skiing, serves as a Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice, and then builds his thesis project, the The Boomerang ski lodge. Charles lives with Stefan at The Boomerang and, as Aspen grows into a world-class ski resort, spends fifty years welcoming thousands of people to the town with Austrian warmth and gemütlichkeit. Based on archival documents and letters, together with the authors' personal reflections, Escape Home is a family memoir and a meditation on the domestic qualities of architecture, where the bonds of culture and family prove to be the true foundation for rebuilding meaningful lives and finding both security and freedom.

Front Jacket

A compelling story of one family's escape from Austria and Czechoslovakia at the beginning of World War II. With grace and courage, Charles Paterson, his father Steve, and his sister Doris, coped with the hardship that transformed their lives.
--William J. Cabaniss
United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic, 2004-2006

"This historical memoir is an engrossing saga, profusely illustrated and fully documented, the stuff that makes an intriguing feature film. I heartedly endorse it."
--Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer
Former Director of The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives

March 12, 1938--The Anschluss. Hitler annexes Austria into the Third Reich. For Karl Schanzer, a nine-year-old Viennese boy of Jewish heritage, life is irrevocably altered.

Fleeing Austria and then Czechoslovakia as the countries fall to the Nazis, and then France only steps ahead of the German invasion, a father makes the heart-rending decision to send his children to safety under the guise of adoption by the Paterson family in Australia. There, Karl becomes Charles Paterson and with his new name reinvents his identity in a foreign land. Based on memories of events as well as newly uncovered documents and accounts found in letters between family members, Escape Home is a riveting story of discovery and coming to terms with a past that casts a long shadow.

Refugees and immigrants, the small surviving Schanzer-Paterson family who reunite in the United States only after many years, together tell a story that reaches beyond specific events. Escape Home also speaks to concerns of our present times, where war, economic hardship, and disaster make forced migration increasingly common.

The emergence of modern architecture plays an important role in this story, from pre-war innovations in Central Europe that were part of the family's heritage and surroundings, to the late 1950's, when as a young man Paterson came to formulate his own philosophy of life and design as an apprentice under Frank Lloyd Wright.

Escape Home is at once an engaging tale of a young refugee from Hitler's Europe making a new and fascinating life for himself in post-war America and a reverential homage to his Viennese father's survival after living through not one, but two, world wars. This is a memoir of family love, personal adventure, and discovery as both father and son put the tragedy of their European past behind them to build a fresh and promising future in their new world of America."
--Loren Jenkins
Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent

Escape Home is a hope-filled meditation on the way people adapt the past to present conditions, learn to see the world with clarity even through tribulations, use humor as a tool for stability, and integrate their heritage into utterly new circumstances.

Back Jacket

A compelling story of one family's escape from Austria and Czechoslovakia at the beginning of World War II. With grace and courage, Charles Paterson, his father Steve, and his sister Doris, coped with the hardship that transformed their lives.
--William J. Cabaniss
United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic, 2004-2006

"This historical memoir is an engrossing saga, profusely illustrated and fully documented, the stuff that makes an intriguing feature film. I heartedly endorse it."
--Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer
Former Director of The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives

March 12, 1938--The Anschluss. Hitler annexes Austria into the Third Reich. For Karl Schanzer, a nine-year-old Viennese boy of Jewish heritage, life is irrevocably altered.

Fleeing Austria and then Czechoslovakia as the countries fall to the Nazis, and then France only steps ahead of the German invasion, a father makes the heart-rending decision to send his children to safety under the guise of adoption by the Paterson family in Australia. There, Karl becomes Charles Paterson and with his new name reinvents his identity in a foreign land. Based on memories of events as well as newly uncovered documents and accounts found in letters between family members, Escape Home is a riveting story of discovery and coming to terms with a past that casts a long shadow.

Refugees and immigrants, the small surviving Schanzer-Paterson family who reunite in the United States only after many years, together tell a story that reaches beyond specific events. Escape Home also speaks to concerns of our present times, where war, economic hardship, and disaster make forced migration increasingly common.

The emergence of modern architecture plays an important role in this story, from pre-war innovations in Central Europe that were part of the family's heritage and surroundings, to the late 1950's, when as a young man Paterson came to formulate his own philosophy of life and design as an apprentice under Frank Lloyd Wright.

Escape Home is at once an engaging tale of a young refugee from Hitler's Europe making a new and fascinating life for himself in post-war America and a reverential homage to his Viennese father's survival after living through not one, but two, world wars. This is a memoir of family love, personal adventure, and discovery as both father and son put the tragedy of their European past behind them to build a fresh and promising future in their new world of America."
--Loren Jenkins
Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent

Escape Home is a hope-filled meditation on the way people adapt the past to present conditions, learn to see the world with clarity even through tribulations, use humor as a tool for stability, and integrate their heritage into utterly new circumstances.

Author Biography

Charles Paterson: Charles Paterson was born Karl Schanzer in Vienna, Austria in 1929 and now lives in Aspen, Colorado. As a Jewish child he and his sister were adopted by the Australian Paterson family. An architectural designer, Paterson was one of the last apprentices to train under Frank Lloyd Wright.

Carrie Paterson: Carrie Paterson is an artist and writer based in Los Angeles. She writes for contemporary art journals, lectures at Southern California universities and is Publisher and Editor in chief at DoppelHouse Press.

Hensley Peterson is an editor based in Aspen, Colorado.

Paul Anderson: Paul Anderson is a writer of books and essays. He is a columnist for The Aspen Times.