Switzerland, for example, had a long-standing nonvisa agreement with Germany, but in the summer of 1938, alarmed by the prospect of a Jewish deluge, they demanded some form of travel identification.

[…] what a wretched, and disconsolate hermitage is that house, which is not visited by thee, and what a waive and stray is that man, that hath not thy marks upon him?

How he found himself stepping up when he was told to step down, down when he was told to step up; how he passed through a long box against a cold sponge splatterdashed in his face; how he opened his astonished eyes to see the knife of the guillotine descending on his innocent neck; how he was tossed up and down in the cruel blanket, until brains and bowels were both discombobulated, and he felt more than ever like a cat in a strange garret.

He writes prose with a conversational tone suited for a bus driver talking with a lone passenger on an hourslong excursion.