Walter’s Welcome is the story of Walter Neisser and the more than fifty members of his family he helped to escape Nazi Germany. The story is told through the letters of the Neisser family, which have been meticulously translated and arranged by Walter’s niece, Eva, who also provides moving historical contextualization and commentary. After fleeing Germany, the Neissers resettled in Peru. However, their flight was neither easy nor seamless. Walter worked tirelessly to provide the resources and guidance necessary for the many members of the family to escape, but communications to Europe were frazzled and travel off the continent became increasingly impossible with each passing day, requiring extraordinary will and coordination to contact the correct officials and receive the necessary documentation. The family’s letters reveal the toll these efforts put on them and the challenges of waiting and surviving in a foreign land as they tried to hold together.

The story of Jewish escapees to Latin America has only recently begun to be widely explored. This memoir-in-letters explores the difficulties of daily life in this little explored context, as the Neisser family and many other escaped Jews adjusted to a new home and tried to build a new life in the shadow of the many horrific things happening back in the land they’d left behind.

Eva Neisser Echenberg is a former teacher and author of several textbooks for students of Spanish and French. She holds two MAs?one in English and one in Spanish?from the University of Wisconsin. She has spent the last four years translating from German and Spanish the letters that eventually became Walter’s Welcome.

Eva Neisser Echenberg's profile page

Judy Sklar Rasminsky is an award-winning freelance writer and editor, who has coauthored several textbooks and trade titles. Her work has appeared in Reader’s Digest and the Los Angeles Times, amongst other magazines and newspapers. She has a B.A. in English from Stanford University and an M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Judy Sklar Rasminsky's profile page