Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler: A True Love Story
Trudi Kanter
(Author)
21,000+ Reviews
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Description
An "instantly mesmerizing" (Oprah.com) and "valuable piece of social history" (Chicago Jewish Star)--the astonishing memoir of a "vivid, tenacious, and absolutely unforgettable" (Bookreporter.com) woman whose courage and resourcefulness kept her and her beloved safe after the Nazis invaded Austria. Vienna, 1938: Trudi Kanter, stunning and charismatic, is a renowned hat designer for Europe's most fashionable women when she falls in love with a handsome businessman. "We were young and the world was ours," she writes. Then, in the blink of an eye, Hitler comes to power and Kanter's world collapses. She and her family embark on an incredible journey across Europe, desperate to escape Nazi-occupied Austria.
Product Details
Price
$16.00
$14.88
Publisher
Scribner Book Company
Publish Date
January 14, 2014
Pages
288
Dimensions
5.49 X 8.46 X 0.7 inches | 0.55 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9781476700281
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About the Author
Trudi Kanter was born in Austria and moved across Europe as she tried to escape the Nazis. She and her husband finally settled in England, where she first published her memoir. Her story was lost after her death in 1992 but was reintroduced to the world with the publication of Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler.
Reviews
"Distilled through the lens of a sartorial dignitary, Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler offers an illuminating chronicle of narrow wartime escapes, calamity, and ingenuity. What makes this account all the more revealing is its candor regarding the persistence of mortal tendencies amid even the most disastrous of situations. Sometimes there is vanity, sometimes jealousy, and often, in the most unexpected of places, beauty of both the aesthetic and human varieties." --Alicia Oltuski, author of Precious Objects
"A wonderful memoir of a young milliner in pre-World War II Vienna who flees to London with the man she loves when Hitler's tanks invade. Despite the tragic subject matter, this warm and vividly humorous autobiography is a must for anyone interested in fashion, history - and love." --Bella
"For even in Nazi Vienna, Trudi realized, women still looked in the mirror....Her book is also about the appetite for life, for clothes and hats, and food, and cocktails, and sex, and furnishings, and good company, and conversation. She knew that even in the bleak darkness, we feel, love, desire. She left no child (she and Walter tried, with no success); her hats are long lost, but her book is her legacy, discovered once again." -From the introduction by Linda Grant, author of The Clothes on Their Backs, The Thoughtful Dresser, and We Had It So Good
"This one memoir is a generous- spirited book. Its many delightful moments, as well as its almost matter-of-fact description of menace and impending danger, stay long in the mind."--Wall Street Journal
"What makes the book so instantly mesmerizingis Trudi Kanter herself, who fashioned sentences just the way she fashionedhats as a milliner in late 1930s Vienna--each a dazzling, delicate object ofdelight."--Oprah.com, Book of the Week
"TrudiKanter's memoir is blessed with a wonderful title and an even better backstory...her spirited charm will win you over."--USA Today
"There have been many books by and about refugees from the Third Reich...but there can be few if any that manage to combine terror and death with such sheer frivolity as this engaging memoir....Ms. Kanter's attraction to the light rather than the storm clouds that bedeviled so much of her existence makes her book a happy read."--Washington Times
"With a natural writing style, a talent for re-creating the details of daily life (especially the fashions), Trudi, who died in 1992, comes alive for the reader, creating what becomes a valuable piece of social history. But more than all this, her memoir is a poem of love to her husband, to the cities of Vienna and Paris, and to a way of life that, in the twinkling of an eye, completely disappeared."--Chicago Jewish Star
"Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler does not minimize the horrors of war or the Holocaust, but through Kanter's delightful hopefulness and spare, riveting writing, it presents an unusual memoir of an era that must not be forgotten."--Shelf Awareness
"From Paris to Vienna to London, Kantercreates a vibrant tapestry of her incredible odyssey through one of the darkestperiods in contemporary history. Romance, passion, and peril create anauthentically vivid backdrop for this intimate chronicle."--Booklist
"This book is a remarkable, first-hand account of life during the time, and the importance that fashion played in the survival of Kanter and her loved ones."--fashionpulsedaily.com
"In prose that cuts straight to the bone, SOMEGIRLS, SOME HATS AND HITLER tells the true story of Trudi's astonishing journeyfrom Vienna to Prague to blitzed London seeking safety for her and Walter amidthe horror engulfing Europe...enchanting...In these pages she is alive --- vivid, tenacious and absolutely unforgettable."--bookreporter.com
"Trudi Kanter relates the emotional roller coaster she was on in attempting to get to England with her parents and the love of her life, Walter. The reader shares their terror and resultant cycles of inertia, hope and finally galvanization of emotional resources that Ms. Kanter, her family and friends all brought to bear."--Jewish Book World
"In a rediscovered memoir, the charmed life of designer Trudi Kanter is split open as the Nazis claim Vienna and terror reigns. Every Holocaust story is worth remembering, and Trudi's is unique--she refuses to lose her vision of what the world should be at its very best: a place of red roses, Paris avenues, and above all else, true love." --Alice Hoffman
"Nothing undid beauty and romance like the onslaught of World War II. And yet in Trudi Kanter's elegant memoir Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler love and grace survive the horror in Western Europe. What an enchanting book. What a gem. I could not put it down." --Jennifer Gilmore, author of The Mothers and Something Red
"This Holocaust memoir is more a tale of love than a horror story of Nazi-occupied Europe...the words
and imagery flow beautifully." -Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating romance, a tribute to the love that beat Hitler." --Daily Post
"A wonderful memoir of a young milliner in pre-World War II Vienna who flees to London with the man she loves when Hitler's tanks invade. Despite the tragic subject matter, this warm and vividly humorous autobiography is a must for anyone interested in fashion, history - and love." --Bella
"For even in Nazi Vienna, Trudi realized, women still looked in the mirror....Her book is also about the appetite for life, for clothes and hats, and food, and cocktails, and sex, and furnishings, and good company, and conversation. She knew that even in the bleak darkness, we feel, love, desire. She left no child (she and Walter tried, with no success); her hats are long lost, but her book is her legacy, discovered once again." -From the introduction by Linda Grant, author of The Clothes on Their Backs, The Thoughtful Dresser, and We Had It So Good
"This one memoir is a generous- spirited book. Its many delightful moments, as well as its almost matter-of-fact description of menace and impending danger, stay long in the mind."--Wall Street Journal
"What makes the book so instantly mesmerizingis Trudi Kanter herself, who fashioned sentences just the way she fashionedhats as a milliner in late 1930s Vienna--each a dazzling, delicate object ofdelight."--Oprah.com, Book of the Week
"TrudiKanter's memoir is blessed with a wonderful title and an even better backstory...her spirited charm will win you over."--USA Today
"There have been many books by and about refugees from the Third Reich...but there can be few if any that manage to combine terror and death with such sheer frivolity as this engaging memoir....Ms. Kanter's attraction to the light rather than the storm clouds that bedeviled so much of her existence makes her book a happy read."--Washington Times
"With a natural writing style, a talent for re-creating the details of daily life (especially the fashions), Trudi, who died in 1992, comes alive for the reader, creating what becomes a valuable piece of social history. But more than all this, her memoir is a poem of love to her husband, to the cities of Vienna and Paris, and to a way of life that, in the twinkling of an eye, completely disappeared."--Chicago Jewish Star
"Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler does not minimize the horrors of war or the Holocaust, but through Kanter's delightful hopefulness and spare, riveting writing, it presents an unusual memoir of an era that must not be forgotten."--Shelf Awareness
"From Paris to Vienna to London, Kantercreates a vibrant tapestry of her incredible odyssey through one of the darkestperiods in contemporary history. Romance, passion, and peril create anauthentically vivid backdrop for this intimate chronicle."--Booklist
"This book is a remarkable, first-hand account of life during the time, and the importance that fashion played in the survival of Kanter and her loved ones."--fashionpulsedaily.com
"In prose that cuts straight to the bone, SOMEGIRLS, SOME HATS AND HITLER tells the true story of Trudi's astonishing journeyfrom Vienna to Prague to blitzed London seeking safety for her and Walter amidthe horror engulfing Europe...enchanting...In these pages she is alive --- vivid, tenacious and absolutely unforgettable."--bookreporter.com
"Trudi Kanter relates the emotional roller coaster she was on in attempting to get to England with her parents and the love of her life, Walter. The reader shares their terror and resultant cycles of inertia, hope and finally galvanization of emotional resources that Ms. Kanter, her family and friends all brought to bear."--Jewish Book World
"In a rediscovered memoir, the charmed life of designer Trudi Kanter is split open as the Nazis claim Vienna and terror reigns. Every Holocaust story is worth remembering, and Trudi's is unique--she refuses to lose her vision of what the world should be at its very best: a place of red roses, Paris avenues, and above all else, true love." --Alice Hoffman
"Nothing undid beauty and romance like the onslaught of World War II. And yet in Trudi Kanter's elegant memoir Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler love and grace survive the horror in Western Europe. What an enchanting book. What a gem. I could not put it down." --Jennifer Gilmore, author of The Mothers and Something Red
"This Holocaust memoir is more a tale of love than a horror story of Nazi-occupied Europe...the words
and imagery flow beautifully." -Publishers Weekly
"A fascinating romance, a tribute to the love that beat Hitler." --Daily Post
