Engines Pull Wagons: 1933-1945

Paul Siegel, an optimist and Holocaust survivor, evokes a sense of adventure and hope in this story about his life during World War II. Having immigrated to Holland from Germany after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, Siegel's family went into hiding when the Germans occupied Holland and began organizing deportations. With Zionistic ideals, Siegel loses contact with his family as he attempts to flee Holland for a kibbutz in Israel, but gets caught, and is sent to the Westerbork transit camp to await deportation to a Nazi extermination camp. While there he discovers a way to escape that others later used, and eventually travels to Palestine via Spain. This account of the war provides vivid descriptions of Westerbork, the Dutch resistance, and Siegel's brave escape across the Pyrenees to Israel.