Summary of Marie Yovanovitch's Lessons from the Edge

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

#1 Travel for me is about anticipation and excitement. It’s an opportunity to see new places, engage with different cultures, and challenge my preconceived notions about how the world works. For my parents and their parents, travel was a survival tactic: a series of stressful journeys to escape the tyranny and oppression of the early twentieth century.

#2 Mama was born in Wiesbaden, Germany, to a Russian father and an Indonesian-born, half Dutch, half German mother. The family was stateless, and they struggled to survive without much money. They shared a house with three other families.

#3 During World War II, the Nazis sent Opa to work in a factory 125 miles away. The family had to leave the church house and move into an apartment in the center of Wiesbaden, seeing Opa only when he came home on weekends.

#4 During the war, Mama struggled to reunite with her family. Papa was deported to a POW camp in Germany, where he formed a choir to sing Russian and Serbian patriotic music. The Nazi guards demanded that they perform for them, but Papa refused until he received extra food.

© 2022 IRB Media (Ebook): 9781669382447

Release date

Ebook: 7 April 2022