Knocking on Every Door

As Hitler's army sweeps into Czechoslovakia in 1940, Anka Voticky, a twenty-five-year-old mother of two, her husband, Arnold, and her family flee halfway around the world to an unlikely refuge: the Chinese port of Shanghai. Estranged from all that is familiar, their security is threatened yet again when the Japanese occupying the city force the Jewish refugees into a ghetto. After the war, the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia sends the Voticky's on another harrowing journey out of Europe, this time to safety in Canada.

Global in scope, Anka Voticky's memoir provides a rare glimpse of the far-reaching impact of World War II. At the same time, Knocking on Every Door is an inspiring story of love, family commitment and Anka's willingness to cross oceans in search of freedom and a better future for her children.

Anka Voticky was born in the small town of Brandýs nad Labem in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1913 and her family moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1918. She survived the war years with her family in Shanghai, China and moved back to Prague in 1946. In 1948, Anka, her husband, Arnold, and their two children, Milan and Vera, immigrated to Canada to escape the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia. They settled in Montreal, where their younger son, Michael, was born. Anka died in 2014 at the age of 100.