WWII Typed Narrative & Photo Album
Jewish Refugee Traudi Sommer's 22-page Typed Escape Narrative and Family Photo Album.

Photo album, quarto, titled "Hinter Pensionsmauren: sinem l. Freunde Max Sommer" [Behind the pension walls: … Friends of Max Sommer] dated 21 January 1943 and signed below title; containing more than 150 black-and-white photographs of the Sommer family from 1943 to 1955 including photos from their eventual settling in America; accompanied by a 22-page typed escape narrative written in German by Traudi Sommer.

"A brief check was made, during which no one thought to ask why a woman and two children were in an ambulance full of soldiers."

Traudi Sommer's account of her escape from Nazi occupation in Italy to Switzerland along with two of her children describes how she meticulously planned to evade capture by inventing detailed backstories, befriending military personnel, and traveling through battered Italian cities where she and her family once led relatively peaceful lives. Her husband Max, mentioned on the title page, inexplicably reached Switzerland before his wife and children, leaving Traudi to orchestrate their safe passage on her own. It is a miraculous account of one woman's bravery and ingenuity in the face of imminent peril. The papers and photo albums belonging to her husband's brother Lee Sommer, who also escaped to America from Italy and Switzerland, are housed at the Leo Baek Institute in New York City.

Condition
For inquiries about condition, please contact:
Devon Eastland, Senior Specialist: deastland@swanngalleries.com
Grace Meschery-McCormack, Cataloguer: gmccormack@swanngalleries.com