Hello, I'm Liesl and I'm going to play at Wimbledon... The 驚くべき／特命の／臨時の story of how a 36-year-old ユダヤ人の mother fled Nazi-占領するd Vienna and went on to 達成する an ありそうもない ambition ― taking part in the world's greatest tennis tournament

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BOOK OF THE WEEK

THE TENNIS CHAMPION 世界保健機構 ESCAPED THE NAZIS?

by Felice Hardy (広告 Lib £9.99, 286pp)?

Blink at the 1939 Wimbledon Tennis 選手権s, and you'd have 行方不明になるd her. An elegant 36-year-old Viennese wife and mother by the 指名する of Liesl Herbst was knocked out 6-2, 6-0 in the first 一連の会議、交渉／完成する, by Britain's own Valerie Scott.

Far from 存在 荒廃させるd to 衝突，墜落 out with that underwhelming scoreline, Liesl genuinely didn't mind. 単に qualifying for Wimbledon (（警官の）巡回区域，受持ち区域ing Tim Henman's maternal grandmother Susan Sheppard to do so) and playing a match on the hallowed Wimbledon turf was 業績／成就 enough.

Liesl had arrived in England just four months before, as a ユダヤ人の 難民.?On a 冷淡な morning in March, she'd knocked on the door of the Queen's Tennis Club

A tennis 星／主役にする in her native Austria, Liesl had arrived in England just four months before, as a ユダヤ人の 難民. On a 冷淡な morning in March, she'd knocked on the door of the Queen's Tennis Club, 試験的に enquiring whether she might be 許すd to join.

A きびきびした woman on the 委員会 called Jane, having no idea who this newcomer was, 申し込む／申し出d to have a quick game with her. Liesl stepped 今後 and 攻撃する，衝突する a flat forehand 運動 with pent-up 軍隊 so hard it almost 新たな展開d Jane's racquet out of her 手渡す. Jane jogged up to the 逮捕する and said: 'Please 許す my French, but who the hell are you?'

'I'm Austrian,' Liesl explained. '井戸／弁護士席, I was Austrian until Hitler took away my 国籍. My 指名する is Liesl Herbst and I'm going to play at Wimbledon.'

And that very year, she did.

In this harrowing family memoir, Liesl's granddaughter Felice Hardy puts that Wimbledon 外見 into its traumatic 状況. That match in London SW19 happened just as an 広げるing 悲劇 was about to （海，煙などが）飲み込む Liesl's family still 罠にかける in Vienna and Prague.

I couldn't put this 調書をとる／予約する 負かす／撃墜する. It brought home how 豊富な Jews in seemingly 自由主義の cities such as Vienna and Prague felt 安全な, even when the Nazis took 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金 ― but how wrong they were.

Born in 1903 and growing up in an 豊富な, affectionate 世帯, young Liesl had everything: beauty, wealth, charm, brilliance at the piano, and astonishing at hleticism on the tennis 法廷，裁判所.

Born in 1903 and growing up in an 豊富な, affectionate 世帯, young Liesl had everything. Pictured when she was younger

She and David had one child, Dorli ― the author's mother ― who, amazingly, would also one day play at Wimbledon. Liesl pictured with Dorli and dog Teddy in 1937

Liesl's other sister Trude and her family 苦しむd a dreadful 運命／宿命. Hardy tells their heartbreaking story with tenderness and warmth. Liesl pictured with Trude and others

She met her ポーランドの（人）-born husband David (also ユダヤ人の) in the Louvre, while she was 熟考する／考慮するing Art History at the Sorbonne and he was trying to find the Mona Lisa.

Although she didn't like the way he slurped his soup (he was いっそう少なく high-born than she was), they fell passionately in love and married in the 早期に 1920s, he running a successful silk-在庫／株ing 商売／仕事 in Vienna, she taking part in 70 international tennis tournaments and winning 15 of them. By 1930 she was the Austrian 国家の 支持する／優勝者.

She and David had one child, Dorli ― the author's mother ― who, amazingly, would also one day play at Wimbledon, in the （テニスなどの）ダブルス (and would 類似して be knocked out in the first 一連の会議、交渉／完成する).

It took foresight in the 中央の-1930s to see what was coming 一連の会議、交渉／完成する the corner, and not everyone was blessed with that foresight. 'Because of your success in 商売／仕事 and 地雷 at tennis, we're 完全に 受託するd,' Liesl said cheerfully to David, as 突発／発生s of anti-Semitism started to sully Vienna.

'No,' said David. 'Once they discover you are ユダヤ人の by 遺産, you will become a 的.'

He made it his 商売／仕事 to 得る ビザs so the three of them could escape to a 安全な country. England did 申し込む／申し出 a ビザ, but just for two of them: Liesl and Dorli. David saw them off on the 計画（する） and said he would follow on.

As for Liesl's 未亡人d mother, she told them: 'I'm too old to make a new life in a foreign country and this 汚い 商売／仕事 will be over soon.'

It was, of course, misguided 楽観主義. Liesl's mother and 無能にするd sister Irma were 一連の会議、交渉／完成するd up and sent to Theresienstadt, where they would die of 餓死 and illness within two months of each other in 1942.

That overcrowded hell-穴を開ける was a scrapheap for the 年輩の and infirm. 餓死 rations and contagious 病気 had the 願望（する）d 影響 (for the Nazis) of keeping the overcrowding in check.

David, 一方／合間, was 軍隊d to 降伏する his Viennese 商売／仕事 to the Nazis. In that sickening Nazi 夜明け, he watched as the brilliant 地元の ユダヤ人の 外科医 was 軍隊d to clean the pavement with a nail 小衝突 and 証言，証人／目撃するd a woman who lived across the road take her own life, jumping from her balcony.

His circuitous escape reads like a thriller: 密輸するd into Czechoslovakia and on to still-安全な Poland, he はうd through snow to 避ける 逮捕（する）, before taking a flight from Warsaw to England.

Trude (pictured), her husband Rudolf and their teenage daughter Anna were in a slave 労働 （軍の）野営地，陣営 in Slovakia for two years

Liesl would を煩う emotionally 手足を不自由にする／（物事を）損なうing 生存者 's 犯罪 for the 残り／休憩（する） of her life. Pictured: Dorli and Anna

'Father and Daughter 再会させるd' ran a headline in the Daily Mail of March 30, 1939, showing a photo of David and Dorli 安全な on British 国／地域.

Liesl's other sister Trude and her family 苦しむd a dreadful 運命／宿命. Hardy tells their heartbreaking story with tenderness and warmth.

Trude, her husband Rudolf and their teenage daughter Anna were in a slave 労働 （軍の）野営地，陣営 in Slovakia for two years, until it was 解放するd by 同志／支持者s and they escaped, to 生き残る for months in さまざまな huts and 洞穴s. Anna fell in love with a boy called Heinrich, from another escaped family, and you feel so sure it's going to be all 権利 for them.

But, horrifically, they were all 発射 in an 残虐（行為） of a 大虐殺: 747 殺人d at a place called Kremnicka by an Einsatzkommando, or 動きやすい 殺し屋集団. The evil Nazi 悪党／犯人, Georg Hauser, was 結局 罪人／有罪を宣告するd in 1962 but served only six years in 刑務所，拘置所.

Liesl would を煩う emotionally 手足を不自由にする／（物事を）損なうing 生存者's 犯罪 for the 残り／休憩（する） of her life.

Hardy 令状s powerfully about the 損失 that the war years and their 影響 wreaked not only on Liesl and David, but on Dorli too, who would go on to marry unhappily, and who did not find it at all 平易な to 表明する affection.

'She [Dorli] and her parents clung together and pulled up an emotional drawbridge on anyone or anything that 脅すd the 生き残るing ― and therefore 有罪の ― family 部隊,' Hardy 令状s, from bitter first-手渡す experience.

Dorli, 診断するd with 癌, was 設立する dead on the bathroom 床に打ち倒す when Hardy was just 20. 吸収するing this unbearably sad news, David and Liesl lived on into their late 80s and 90s, Liesl hardly eating a thing ― doing what David called 'ユダヤ人の ping-pong' (moving food from her plate to so meone else's).

Hardy paints a vivid picture of their flat 近づく パン職人 Street which was a microcosm of Vienna, Liesl cooking Viennese food and creaking out Mozart and Chopin on the piano with her arthritic fingers.

This is an unforgettably touching story, with the 1939 Wimbledon moment the glowing pinnacle of a long and tormented life.