The Thorny Road to Success

Karl Maramorosch may be best known for his accomplishments as a top scientist, but the story of how he became such a success has never been told-until now.

Born in Vienna in 1915, his family moved to Poland, and he fled with his wife, Irene, to Romania in September 1939.

They spent four years in Polish refugee camps and were in Soviet-occupied Romania until October 1946, before coming to the United States in January 1947 on an immigration visa.

But they did not arrive unscathed: Maramorosch's father died in the gas chamber in Belzec in 1942, and his mother also died at the camp. His brother died in the Kolomyya jail on Yom Kippur in 1942. His wife's closest relatives died in Treblinka in 1942.

The inseparable couple refused to let any of that stop them from forging ahead: He began a scientific career that spanned more than sixty years, and she became a librarian at the New York Public Library, where she worked thirty years.

Maramorosch recalls the painful losses of the past and the brutalities of war, but he also celebrates his love for his wife and life in The Thorny Road to Success.