After surviving the war, Georg Rauch (1924-2006) spent several years at an alpine TB clinic in Austria. His lifelong love of painting and drawing eventually led him to a successful career in fine art. In 1965, he met his future wife, Phyllis, in Vienna, and in the spring of 1966 they married, eventually settling in Guadalajara, Mexico. In 1984, he began writing his wartime memoir in German and worked with his wife on translating it simultaneously into English. He self-published it in 2006, four months before his death.

Books by Georg Rauch

Unlikely Warrior: A Jewish Soldier in Hitler's Army

by Georg Rauch - Nonfiction, Young Adult 12+

As a young adult in wartime Vienna, Georg Rauch helped his mother hide dozens of Jews from the Gestapo behind false walls in their top-floor apartment and arrange for their safe transport out of the country. Then came the day he was drafted into Hitler's army and shipped out to fight on the Eastern front as part of the German infantry. Thus begins the incredible journey of a 19-year-old thrust unwillingly into an unjust war, who must use his smarts, skills and bare-knuckled determination to stay alive in the trenches.