The last escape

Most of us think of the Mossad as the Israeli equivalent to America's CIA. That is correct today (2017), but in the late 1930s, the Mossad was made up of nine men and one woman--Ruth Kluger. Their purpose was to spirit Europe's Jews into, as they called it, "Eretz Israel", the "Land of Israel". Since Great Britain had severely restricted legal Jewish immigration to Palestine (the "Aliyah Aleph"), the Mossad smuggled Jews into Palestine (the "Aliyah Beth"). Ruth tells her story from the time she was recruited into the Mossad through the end of World War II and the establishment of the State of Israel. The book is much more interesting than this synopsis, believe me. And Ruth Kluger-Aliav (she changed her name when she emigrated to Israel) is not to be confused with Ruth Kluger, a professor emerita of German studies at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Kluger (b. 1931) was deported from Vienna and spent time in concentration camps as a child; her book Still Alive tells of those experiences.