The test of courage - Christopher Robbins

Michel Thomas is famous for teaching languages in a matter of days. His pupils include Grace Kelly, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Woody Allen and Mel Gibson. Using a remarkable technique that demands no homework or note-taking Michel takes on the pressure of learning himself with spectacular results. But this miraculous technique was learnt the hard way - in a six-hour ordeal with the Gestapo as a mental method of blocking out pain. Few of the pupils in his language schools around the world realise the background behind this charming eighty-year old man. This is the story of his terrible and courageous life; of a man who is one of the few survivors of the French concentration camps and slave labour gangs; who was one of the principal witnesses at the trial of Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon. He escaped to fight with the French resistance - using a total of five separate identities, and then joined up with the US 7th Army to work in counter intelligence. He received the handwritten confession of the commander of Dachau at its liberation and later spearheaded an elaborate operation inside occupied Germany to uncover a vast underground Nazi organisation dedicated to the return of the Fourth Reich. The amazing story of this incredible deception to lure SS members into a trap is told, telling of Michel's single-minded pursuit of the perpetrator of the Malmdy Massacre.