The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor

Instead of driving Eddie to the aeronautical factory in Dessau, as promised, his father heads straight for the border. Eddie’s mother and sister, still in Leipzig, have arranged to follow and join them in Belgium, where the Nazis have no jurisdiction. A “people smuggler” escorts Eddie and his father into the Netherlands, where they are forced to hide in a roadside ditch with other fugitives until they receive the signal to flee across the Belgian border.

At the vital moment, however, the two of them are separated when Eddie’s father pauses to help a woman up the embankment. With no time to evade the searchlights that are sweeping the border, Eddie’s father runs back to the ditch, lest he give the others away. In the Belgian town of Verviers, Eddie checks into the hotel where they arranged to meet. After a few days, his father arrives badly injured from a beating by the Belgian police, who had then handed him over to the Gestapo. Amazingly, he managed to escape their custody and flee across the border to rejoin his son.

The two make their way to Brussels to await Eddie’s mother and sister in a comfortable apartment rented by the family.