ARC Arrival: Lizzi & Fredl

Lizzi & Fredl
A Perilous Journey of Love and Faith: A Memoir
By Dr. William B. Stanford

Publisher: iUniverse Incorporated

I received this book from the author through Bostick Communications.

About the book: Holocaust accounts usually revolve around the persecution and eradication of the Jewish people, but there are others who also suffered greatly under Hitler's tyranny; however, their sacrifices and experiences have seldom been chronicled in World War II accounts. . . until now. Lizzi and Fredl Steiner were Catholics who did not escape the horrors of the war while Fredl's account finally answers why the atrocity of the massacres at Oradour-Sur-Glane occurred.

World War II scholarly books could only speculate why a Nazi Panzer division destroyed the town of Oradour-Sur-Glane by exterminating its citizens, including women and children, and for years the reason has remained a relative mystery. Fredl, however, in sharing the story with his son and author Dr. William B. Stanford, was given an account by an eyewitness who managed to escape and share the horrors of what had been done to his town.

Awarded both Editor's Choice and Publisher's Choice by iUniverse, Lizzi & Fredl is a story elucidating that France had concentration, internment and labor camps thought mostly to exist in Germany. This memoir is also a love story of unconditional devotion and resilience between a happily married couple whose lives were disrupted by a seven-year nightmare. It took many years for Dr. Stanford to get his parents to share their stories, and once they did, it was apparent to him that they had not even revealed their individual horrors to each other over the years. From a long, arduous journey to Paris to Fredl's unbelievable rescue from a train bound for a Nazi death camp, Lizzi & Fredl delivers a remarkable true story of courage, faith, and overwhelming love. (from publicity sent with the book)

About the author: Dr. William B. Stanford is a practicing optometrist in California. He has been married to his wife, Janice, for thirty-eight years and has two daughters, Wendy and Christine. Lizzi & Fredl is the biography of Stanford's parents, Lizzi and Fredl Steiner. In 1998, when his parents were in their late eighties, he encouraged them to tell the story of what they had gone through during the war, a subject they had never wanted to discuss. Two years of recordings and note taking resulted in a jigsaw puzzle of 10,000 pieces which required nine years for Dr. Stanford to put together into his parents' remarkable story. Fredl passed away in 2001 at the age of 90, and Lizzi died three years later at the age of 92. (from publicity material sent with the book)

Lizzi & Fredl
Publisher/Publication Date: iUniverse, April 2008
ISBN: 978-0-595-43311-7
444 pages

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