x INTRODUCTION Though he had rebelIed against religious orthodoxy, he never denied his Jewishness. He once said that even though his mind was intellectual, his heart was Jewish. In fact, his or- thodox [ewish training was the core of many of his novels. His book Raquel: The [etoess ofToledo, the thirteenth-century story of the beautiful daughter of King Alphonso the Eighth's [ew- ish Finance Minister, is one of his masterpieces. He based it on the Biblical story of Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus, and dedicated it to two wornen: Marta, the wife he loved, and his loyal secretary, Hilde Waldo. Some thirty years later, by coin- cidence, I wrote a ·book about another Raquel called Raquela: A Woman ofIsrael. Each time he came to New York on a lecture tour or to dis- cuss a new book with his publisher, Ben Huebsch of Viking Press, I interviewed hirn; and when he moved to Southern California, I visited hirn at his horne overlooking the hills of Pacific Palisades. Often, as we talked, I feIt his blue eyes studying me-warm, penetrating, filled at times with sadness, and other times squinting with mischief and fun. When Herman Graf visited Marta, still erect and elegant in her nineties, he drove round and round the house unable to find the hidden entrance, until at last he found the Spanish stairs leading downward to the mansion. Marta Feucht- wanger was amused by his dilemma. "You couldn't find the stairs," she laughed, and then more seriously said, "That's why nobody can murder me." Lion's secretary, Hilde, helped me understand how he wrote his historical novels. Early rnornings, he'd swim in the Pacific Ocean, take walks with Marta, then eat breakfast and begin working. He'd spend the morning dictating to Hilde, who typed as fast as he spoke. Often in the afternoon he'd read

THE OPPERMANNS XI and research voraciously, studying original documents, letters, and speeches to find all the material to make his historical novels authentie. Frequently, he'd work until seven or eight at night. Later, he and Marta would relax, dining and socializing with Thomas Mann and others in the colony of German exiles and ernigres who found not only success in America but also that for which they yearned most-freedom. Lion had long been an admirer of American writers and artists, especially Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, and con- tinually sought to link Europe and Ameriea. His admiration for America had intensified knowing that Amerieans had helped save his life and President Roosevelt had arranged the visas that brought hirn and Marta to safe haven. He died in 1958 at the age of seventy-four, having survived wars, revolutions, imprisonments, and through it all he had remained eheerful, eourageous, and life-Ioving, a novelist whose hauntingly prophetie work , The Oppermanns, stands as a moving testament to rnan's innate eapaeity to transform the stuff of our lives into redemptive art, Ruth Gruber February 2001 New York City