Lost to the World - Softcover

Scott, Anika; Adler, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1401083870 ISBN 13: 9781401083878

Publisher: Xlibris, 2003

Synopsis

"The tragic family saga of one of Gustav Mahler¿s best friends... A horrifying tale of Austria¿s darkest years... Intensely absorbing!"-Henry-Louis de La Grange, biographer of Gustav Mahler

"...an important work which tells a story that is

About this title

About the Author:

Tom Adler is a retired civil rights lawyer and the grandson of Guido Adler, one of the founding fathers of musicology. He has spent several years researching the disappearance and subsequent discovery of the manuscript given to his grandfather by Gustav M

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Lost to the World

by Tom Adler with Anika Scott

Chapter One

SYNCHRONICITY

Sometimes, things occur in such a way that inaction would be intolerable. A fact, an event, a piece of information, presents itself to you in a manner so compelling that some inner voice commands that you act. To find out what really happened, to look behind what has been presented . . . to find the truth.

I was in Paris when I received the e-mail that started it all. After the owner of our Left Bank hotel had given me directions, I wandered through a confusing maze of small tree-lined streets to an Internet café. With my non-existent French, I somehow made it known that it was, indeed, decaf coffee that I was ordering. After a disapproving look, the waiter brewed the offending drink and I sat down and logged on. An e-mail awaited me from a stranger, Dr. Brigitte Hamann. I later learned that she was a noted Austrian historian and author of the book Hitler’s Vienna.

Dr. Hamann was doing research for a book about the life of Winifred Wagner, daughter-in-law of the famous German composer Richard Wagner and close friend of Adolf Hitler. She had found my name on an Internet genealogy website and knew of my aunt, Melanie Adler. In the Wagner archives in Bayreuth, Germany, Dr. Hamann had found a letter, written in Vienna in 1941, from Melanie to Winifred Wagner. Melanie had sought Winifred’s help in preserving the library of Guido Adler, Melanie’s father and my paternal grandfather. He had been a famous musicologist and professor at the University of Vienna, and had collected a library consisting of thousands of books and music manuscripts in the course of his career. The letter Dr. Hamann sent to me was the first I knew of Melanie’s attempts to preserve the library during World War II. My aunt sounded desperate:

And now I come to the part of my writing that is the most difficult for me, because I want to ask something for myself and because my entire future depends on the fulfillment of my request. And that is the obtaining of a letter of protection that would finally secure some peace for me, my possessions and my work.

From what did my Aunt Melanie need protection? For a Jewish family in Vienna in 1941, the answer was clear: from the Nazis. By chance, I had recently started to piece together my family’s history, but what had happened to my grandfather and his daughter during the war had been largely a mystery to me.

About this edition

• Publisher: Xlibris
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1401083870
• ISBN 13: 9781401083878
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 180