Catherine Ehrlich

In this gripping family tale, Catherine Ehrlich explores her Austrian 
grandparents’ influential lives at the crossroads of German and Jewish 
national movements. Weaving her grandmother Irma’s spellbinding memoirs 
into her narrative, she profiles a charismatic woman who confronts 
history with courage and rebuilds lives—for herself and Europe’s 
dispossessed.

Starting out in Bohemia’s picturesque countryside, Irma studies 
languages in Prague alongside Kafka and Einstein—and so joins Europe’s 
intelligentsia. Tension builds as World War I destroys that world, and 
Irma marries prominent Zionist, Jakob Ehrlich, bold advocate for 
Vienna’s 180,000 Jews. Irma’s direct words detail the weeks after 
Hitler’s arrival when Adolf Eichmann himself appears to liberate Irma 
and her son from Vienna.

Irma’s stunning turnaround in London unfolds amidst a dazzling cohort of
 luminaries—Chaim and Vera Weizmann, and Viscountess Beatrice Samuel 
among them. Irma finds her voice as an activist, saving lives and 
resettling refugees, and ultimately moves on to New York where her work 
resumes among high-profile friends like Catskills hostess Jennie 
Grossinger.

Along the way, Ehrlich queries her family’s fate: what was behind 
Eichmann's twisted role in her grandparents’ lives? How was Irma able to
 focus outwardly when her own life was in crisis? Part intimate memoir, 
part historical thriller, Irma’s Passport is an inspiring true story about remarkable women whose unsung courage restored the world we know.

This is a book for fans of Edmund de Waal, Erik Larson, and Alexander Wolff.

She Writes Press

Irma's Passport: One Woman, Two World Wars, and a Legacy of Courage

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