Bye-Bye, Baden-Baden

June M. Blurton is a retired speech/language pathologist.

This novel is based on the adventures of a German family trying to
escape from Europe to the United States in 1941. It is written from the
point of view of the 16-year-old daughter, Uschi, who is quick to learn
languages and can interpret for her mother, father, and 13-year-old
brother. They go from Paris to a camp in the Pyrenees, to Marseilles,
where visas are hard to come by, and then across Spain and into Portugal
to catch their boat.

Readers without some knowledge of European history will find this story
difficult to follow. The characters never really come to life, and the
writing is often clichéd, as evidenced by the sentence: “With her
long red finger-nails Tamara lit another cigarette and frowned.”