Describes the author's flight from Belgrade to Brazil

"Irene Grunbaum was a German Jew married to a Serbian Jew and living in Belgrade when World War II and the German army overwhelmed Yugoslavia. This work is the account - written shortly after the war from a new home in Brazil - of her escape from the Germans and their collaborators through the Balkans to a temporary haven in Italian-occupied Albania." "Grunbaum's husband did not escape. With most of the Balkan Jews, he perished in a concentration camp. Safer in Albania - the Italians were not rounding up Jews and indeed had only tenuous control in their regions of occupation - the author had to contend with murderously contentious partisans, bandits and smugglers, fascists of various persuasions, the risks of being female, and the dislocations of war in a poor country. After the war, Grunbaum made her way to Italy, which was not in much better shape. There she attempted to secure a haven, eventually finding refuge in Brazil." "Grunbaum's autobiography casts light on a complex, little-known, and savagely brutal corner of Europe in World War II. Her story is a vivid description of ethnic hatred and ancient rivalries - and how human compassion can sometimes transcend both."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

An appeal for cooperation among the Balkan people.

As a favor to enigmatic billionaire Henrik Thorvaldsen, Cassiopeia Vitt treks into Bulgaria's Rila mountains in search of a buried stash of exceedingly rare artifacts from a bygone civilization: the ancient tomb of a Thracian king. But when her presence is discovered by a shadowy group of Russians secretly mining the area, she needs a way out. Who to trust becomes the question, and her life depends on choosing the right option.

Eastward to Tartary, Robert Kaplan's first book to focus on a single region since his bestselling Balkan Ghosts, introduces readers to an explosive and little-known part of the world destined to become a tinderbox of the future. Kaplan takes us on a spellbinding journey into the heart of a volatile region, stretching from Hungary and Romania to the far shores of the oil-rich Caspian Sea. Through dramatic stories of unforgettable characters, Kaplan illuminates the tragic history of this unstable area that he describes as the new fault line between East and West. He ventures from Turkey, Syria, and Israel to the turbulent countries of the Caucasus, from the newly rich city of Baku to the deserts of Turkmenistan and the killing fields of Armenia. The result is must reading for anyone concerned about the state of our world in the decades to come.

Greece, 1940. In the port city of Salonika, with its wharves and brothels, dark alleys and Turkish mansions, a tense political drama is being played out. As Adolf Hitler plans to invade the Balkans, spies begin to circle—and Costa Zannis, a senior police official, must deal with them all. He is soon in the game, working to secure an escape route for fugitives from Nazi Berlin that is protected by German lawyers, Balkan detectives, and Hungarian gangsters—and hunted by the Gestapo. Meanwhile, as war threatens, the erotic life of the city grows passionate. For Zannis, that means a British expatriate who owns the local ballet academy, a woman from the dark side of Salonika society, and the wife of a shipping magnate. With extraordinary historical detail and a superb cast of characters, Spies of the Balkans is a stunning novel about a man who risks everything to fight back against the world’s evil.

On November 8, 1943, U.S. Army nurse Agnes Jensen stepped out of a cold rain in Catania, Sicily, into a C-53 transport plane. But she and twelve other nurses never arrived in Bari, Italy, where they were to transport wounded soldiers to hospitals farther from the front lines. A violent storm and pursuit by German Messerschmitts led to a crash landing in a remote part of Albania, leaving the nurses, their team of medics, and the flight crew stranded in Nazi-occupied territory. What followed was a dangerous nine-week game of hide-and-seek with the enemy, a situation President Roosevelt monitored daily. Albanian partisans aided the stranded Americans in the search for a British Intelligence Mission, and the group began a long and hazardous journey to the Adriatic coast. During the following weeks, they crossed Albania's second highest mountain in a blizzard, were strafed by German planes, managed to flee a town moments before it was bombed, and watched helplessly as an attempt to airlift them out was foiled by Nazi forces. Albanian Escape is the suspense-filled story of the only group of Army flight nurses to have spent any length of time in occupied territory during World War II. The nurses and flight crew endured frigid weather, survived on little food, and literally wore out their shoes trekking across the rugged countryside. Thrust into a perilous situation and determined to survive, these women found courage and strength in each other and in the kindness of Albanians and guerrillas who hid them from the Germans.

Bail Out over the Balkans is a compelling true story that relives the traumatic experience of a Boeing Flying Fortress B-17 crew shot down over German Nazi Occupied Yugoslavia and their dramatic escape after hiking and hiding for 45 days in the rugged mountain terrain. This book is based on the memories of the pilot and author, Dick Munsen, taped interviews of many of the crew members, and extensive research conducted by Kay Munsen to ensure accuracy and detail of each day of their trek through the mountains of Yugoslavia.Dick's experience after enlisting in the Army Air Forces and 22 missions prior to being shot down is documented in the companion book, 23 Lessons.

There's trouble in the Balkans, the Powder Keg of Europe. Prolific Bulgarian-American author Vladimir Chernozemsky takes us back to the bloody Balkan War in his most personal novel yet. The Ottoman Turks occupied and oppressed the Balkans for five centuries until Bulgaria and its neighbors drove them out, only then to fight over the liberated territories. It was a devastating war that still reverberates today.