This text is a generational history of the young people whose lives were irrevocably shaped by the rise of the Nazis. Half a million Jews lived in Germany when Hitler came to power in 1933. Over the next decade, thousands would flee. Among these refugees, teens and young adults formed a remarkable generation. They were old enough to appreciate the loss of their homeland and the experience of flight, but often young and flexible enough to survive and even flourish in new environments. This generation has produced such disparate figures as Henry Kissinger and "Dr Ruth" Westheimer. Walter Laqueur has drawn on interviews, published and unpublished memoirs and his own experiences as a member of this group of refugees, to paint a vivid and moving portrait of Generation Exodus.

Walter Laqueur chairs the Research Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC. He is founder of the Journal of Contemporary History and has been its editor since 1966. He is editor-in chief of the Yale Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. From 1965 to 1992 he served as the director of the Warner Library and Institute of Contemporary History in London. He has taught at Brandeis University, been a visiting professor at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Tel Aviv University and the University of Chicago.