Born in 1883 in New York City, Gemma La Guardia Gluck was the daughter of an American army bandleader and European mother of aristocratic Italian Jewish lineage.
She was the sister of beloved New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia.
Gemma and her Hungarian Jewish husband were living in Budapest in 1944 when Nazi troops stormed the city.
The Gestapo arrested her as a political prisoner because she was La Guardia's sister.
Gluck recounts the plight of Budapest's Jews, deportation to Mutthausen with her husband, and enslavement at Ravensbruck, a notorious concentration camp for women.
With painful sensitivity she chronicles unspeakable evil, kindness at great risk, and courage among women in a prefeminist world.
She also recalls her girlhood years spent in the Old West, Native Americans befriended by her mother, international travel with her father, and her brother's ambitions and rise to success.
Syracuse University Press Fiorello's sister: gemma la guardia gluck's story, paperback/gemma la guardia gluck
