Bretholz's 1999 autobiography, "Leap into Darkness: Seven Years On the Run In Wartime Europe" , is a gripping textbook of survival in a European ( read Western Civilization), mostly urban , 20th Century world, gone collectively sociopathic.
If, heaven forbid, the SHTF in the U.S. or another Western nation, life is likely to be analogous to Bretholz 's 1938-1945 world. Forget your Mad Max, escape to wilds, live off the land scenario. This is the real deal.
I just finished it. For some reason it took awhile to find it in the local public library.
Like much of history, it can never be repeated exactly but history does teach us that similar things happen repeatedly.
Like many such scenarios, a large measure of luck has to do with it. Also, as Amanda Ripley noted, survival is also a measure of a willingness and ability to take decisive action at critical moments (jumping out of a train heading toward Auschwitz); most other occupants declined to take action which is the most common reaction.
OTOH, Bretholz's survival was dependent on a feature of history not likely to be repeated. He was repeatedly able to obtain falsified documents. Nowadays, most documents can be scanned and the counterfeit documents easily determined. I suspect that document forgery will be a much more difficult task the next time it becomes necessary.
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