Jeremy Dronfield has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 3 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 16 ratings. The most-rated is The Stone Crusher.
The Stone Crusher
Summary
In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was arrested by the Nazis. Along with his 16-year old son Fritz, he was sent to Buchenwald in Germany, where a new concentration camp was being built. It was the beginning of a five-year odyssey almost without parallel. They helped build Buchenwald, young Fritz learning construction skills which would help preserve him from extermination in the coming years. But it was his bond with his father that would ultimately keep them both alive. When the 50-year old Gustav was transferred to Auschwitz - a certain death sentence - Fritz was determined to go with him. His wiser friends tried to dissuade him - “If you want to keep living, you have to forget your father,” they said. But that was impossible, and Fritz pleaded for a place on the Auschwitz transport. “He is a true comrade,” Gustav wrote in his secret diary, “always at my side. The boy is my greatest joy. We are inseparable.” Gustav kept his diary hidden throughout his six years in the death camps - even Fritz knew nothing of it. In it he recorded his story, a tale of survival and a father-son bond which proved stronger than the machine that sought to break them both.
©2018 Jeremy Dronfield (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. This audiobook is published in arrangement with Chicago Review Press c/o Susan Schulman Literary Agency.
Beyond the Call
Summary
Near the end of World War II, thousands of Allied ex-POWs were abandoned to wander the war-torn Eastern Front. With no food, shelter, or supplies, they were an army of dying men. The Red Army had pushed the Nazis out of Russia. As they advanced across Poland, the prison camps of the Third Reich were discovered and liberated. In defiance of humanity, the freed Allied prisoners were discarded without aid. The Soviets viewed POWs as cowards and regarded all refugees as potential spies or partisans. The United States repeatedly offered to help recover their POWs but were refused. With relations between the Allies strained, a plan was conceived for an undercover rescue mission. In total secrecy the OSS chose an obscure American air force detachment stationed at a Ukrainian airfield; it would provide the base and the cover for the operation. The man they picked to undertake it was veteran 8th Air Force bomber pilot Captain Robert Trimble. With little covert training, already scarred by the trials of combat, Trimble took the mission. He would survive by wit, courage, and a determination to do some good in a terrible war. Alone he faced up to the terrifying Soviet secret police, saving hundreds of lives. At the same time he battled to come to terms with the trauma of war and find his own way home to his wife and child. One ordinary man. One extraordinary mission. A thousand lives at stake. This is the compelling, inspiring true story of an American hero who laid his life on the line to bring his fellow men home to safety and freedom.
©2015 Lee Trimble and Jeremy Dronfield (P)2015 Recorded Books
Hitler's Last Plot
Summary
Revealed for the first time: how the SS rounded up the Nazis' most prominent prisoners to serve as human shields for Hitler in the last days of World War II. In April 1945, as Germany faced defeat, Hitler planned to round up the Third Reich's most valuable prisoners and send them to his "Alpine Fortress", where he and the SS would keep the hostages as they made a last stand against the Allies. The prisoners included European presidents, prime ministers, generals, British secret agents, and German anti-Nazi clerics, celebrities, and officers who had aided the July 1944 bomb plot against Hitler - and the prisoners' families. Orders were given to the SS: If the German military situation deteriorated, the prisoners were to be executed - all 139 of them. So began a tense, deadly drama. As some prisoners plotted escape, others prepared for the inevitable, and their SS guards grew increasingly volatile, drunk, and trigger-happy as defeat loomed. As a dramatic confrontation between the SS and the Wehrmacht threatened the hostages caught in the middle, the US Army launched a frantic rescue bid to save the hostages before the ax fell. Drawing on previously unpublished and overlooked sources, Hitler's Last Plot is the first full account of this astounding and shocking story, from the original round-up order to the prisoners' terrifying ordeal and ultimate rescue. Told in a thrilling, pause-resisting narrative, this is one of World War II's most fascinating episodes. PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2019 Ian Sayer and Jeremy Dronfield (P)2019 Hachette Audio