Lisbon Route

Ronald Weber is professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame. His past books include News of Paris, America in Change, The Literature of Fact, and Hired Pens. He lives in Valparaiso, Indiana.

A leisurely, story-filled account of life in Nazi-occupied Europe's last open door to freedom. During World War II, the port city of Lisbon, in neutral Portugal, was the destination for a flood of refugees fleeing the Nazi terror who hoped to make their way to the United States and elsewhere. An estimated 100,000 or more refugees passed through the old-fashioned European capital, writes Weber (American Studies/Univ. of Notre Dame; News of Paris: American Journalists in the City of Light Between the Wars, 2006, etc.), often waiting for weeks or months for a place on a freighter, fishing boat or plane. At the same time, reporters, diplomats, spies, military leaders and others shuttled in and out freely, and the formerly sleepy city became a frenzied bazaar, charged with energy, conspiratorial feeling and moral uncertainty. . . . Based on newspaper accounts as well as diaries and letters, Weber's book brings the wartime city to life, tracing the machinations of agents and double agents in bars and hotels; Varian Fry's work on behalf of the International Rescue Committee to find safe passage for artists and intellectuals; and secret meetings where belligerents exchanged information. With the war's end, Prime Minister Antonio Salazar's authoritarian government began promoting the country as a postwar tourist destination. An engaging . . . chronicle of a city that was 'a way into Europe as well as a way out.'

• Chapter 1 PrefaceChapter 2 Hub of the Western UniverseChapter 3 Tramping ForwardChapter 4 Whatever We CanChapter 5 The Last LapChapter 6 Gaiety, Plenty, and Brilliant LightsChapter 7 Living ThereChapter 8 Celebrité de PassageChapter 9 Holding Out HopesChapter 10 Gloriously NeutralChapter 11 War without GunsChapter 12 The Seething CauldronChapter 13 One World to AnotherChapter 14 Wolfram by DayChapter 15 Where to Spend One's HolidayChapter 16 Sources