Escape?

Escape? by Pierre Lucas-Sifneos is the gripping memoir of a young man caught in the crossfire of the Second World War. Pierre leads a halcyon existence as a student in Paris in 1939, doing his best to ignore the gathering dark clouds of the impending war. Instead of focusing on the horrors to come, he busies himself studying and engaging in a love affair with a fellow student. When it becomes obvious that Paris faces imminent German occupation, his girlfriend flees with her family, and Pierre soon follows. Thus, he finds himself immersed in the whirlwind of fleeing refugees, jammed highways, burning cities and aircraft bombings. Told in horrific detail from a diary the author kept at the time, Escape? is a vivid portrayal of the plight of the refugee. Pierre Lucas-Sifneos is the penname of Dr. Peter E. Sifneos, who was able to escape from France and, after many adventures and difficulties, reach New York at the end of June 1941. He was educated at MIT and Harvard Medical School. After he obtained his degree he served for two years as a U.S. Army medical officer in the occupied section of Germany. Having returned to Harvard, he was trained as a psychiatrist, and has been on the faculty there ever since. He is the author of six books on psychiatry, which have been translated into five different languages. He is currently an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard.