Knocking on Every Door

As Hitler’s army swept into Czechoslovakia in 1939, Anka Voticky, a twenty-five-year-old mother of two, her husband, Arnold, and her family fled halfway around the world to an unlikely refuge – the Chinese port of Shanghai. Estranged from all that was familiar, their security was threatened yet again when the Japanese occupying the city forced the Jewish refugees into a ghetto. After the war, the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia sent the Votickys 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.