Drive to Survival: Belgium, France, Spain & Portugal 1940 by Joseph Shadur - WWII Historical Book for History Buffs & Students

Memoirs of a Jew born in Riga in 1928, relating how he and his parents, sister, and grandmother escaped from the Nazis. Describes life in Berlin, where the family lived between 1928-35. The family fled to Belgium in 1936, and then to France just ahead of the Nazis. They spent May-December 1940 under German occupation in Bruges, near Bordeaux, posing as non-Jews. With French help and various documents, they travelled in an Oldsmobile (the "hero" of the story) to the French-Spanish border. A bribe enabled them to pass the German checkpoint; they went from Spain to Portugal, from where they were able to emigrate to the U.S. in February 1941. Shadur settled in Israel in 1950.