Exile: the lives and hopes of Werner Pelz

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Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/229377

Title: Exile: the lives and hopes of Werner Pelz
Author(s): Averill, Roger
Abstract: Like the best true life adventures, the story of Werner Pelz is stranger than fiction. Forced to flee Nazi Germany for being Jewish, he was then interned in England for being German. Shipped to Australia on the notorious HMT Dunera, he spent two years in internment camps in Hay and Tatura. After returning to Britain, his life evolved into a spiritual quest that led him to become an Anglican vicar, to author popular books (including God Is No More), to frequently appear on the BBC, and to become a Guardian columnist. Decades after his wartime Australian exile, he returned to teach Sociology at La Trobe University, continuing his search for a new way of thinking, a new mythology. In the mid-1980s, a young university student, Roger Averill, was taught by this quietly charismatic man. The two developed an unlikely friendship, one that was to last until Werner's death, after which Roger's research unexpectedly revealed a deeper dimension - a personal life filled with familial drama, pain and poignancy.
Publication type: Book
Research centre: Swinburne University of Technology. Faculty of Life and Social Sciences. The Swinburne Institute for Social Research
Publication year: 2012
Keyword(s): Biography; Memoir; Pelz, Werner; Spiritual quest
Publisher: Transit Lounge
ISBN: 9781921924217, 1921924217
Publisher URL: http://www.transitlounge.com.au/
Peer reviewed