Review of "The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis"

Train rides are always the best time for me to catch up on reading and on my recent travels to Washington, DC via train, that gave me that opportunity.  One of the older books on my TBR pile was this one on a tennis player whom I never heard of, but had a story that should be told - and it was by her granddaughter. 

Title/Author:

“The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis” by Felice Hardy

Rating: 

4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:  The story of Liesl Herbst, as told by her granddaughter Felice Hardy in this family memoir, is one that is at times compelling, at times inspiring but for the most part tragic.  Liesl came from a Jewish family in Vienna with some wealth – but being Jewish in a country so close to Germany, there were rumblings of trouble when the Nazis rose to power.  Before this however, Liesl wanted to channel her athletic talent into tennis and follow her idol, Suzanne Lenglen into the sport. 

Through extensive research (by herself and other researchers in Austria and Czechoslovakia), Hardy is able to not only find out about her grandmother’s tennis career but is also able to describe in great detail about the escape from Austria that Liesl and her daughter Dorli (Hardy’s mother) were able to accomplish and settle in London.  Because Liesl was a former tennis champion in Austria, she wanted to compete again and was able to do so at Wimbledon.  She and Dorli became the only mother/daughter team to compete at Wimbledon and while they may not have advanced far in the tournament, it was a testament to their athletic ability and their determination in both athletics and survival.

However, this book is not all positive.  The rest of the family members did not escape the Nazis and all perished at various points during their imprisonment.  These passages, which were more of the book than Liesl’s tennis accomplishments, were difficult to read, but really were necessary for both the reader and the author.  Hardy should be commended for remembering all members of her family, not just her famous grandmother.

There are many conversations that are quoted in the book and given the time frame and lack of ability to verify these from survivors, one must consider these as conversations that Hardy believed these people would have had when either making their escapes or being captured. The journey of David, Liesl’s husband, to London after sending his wife and daughter there almost reads like a survivalist story.  While this is not to question any of the authenticity of this and other similar accounts, it does appear that some of this is what Hardy believes her family members did and said. However, that doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the book.  It is one that is a very good read and while tennis is a part of the story, the takeaway after reading is how much suffering people endured at the hands of the Nazi party during the Holocaust.

I was provided a review copy via NetGalley and the opinions expressed are strictly my own.

Link: Amazon.com: The Tennis Champion Who Escaped the Nazis: From Vienna to Wimbledon, one family’s struggle to survive and win: 9781802471199: Hardy, Felice: Books