The Dragontail Buttonhole

by Peter Curtis

A thrilling escape from Nazi-occupied Europe!

Willy and Sophie Kohut own a store in Prague, selling men’s suiting fabrics imported from Britain and Italy. On March 15th 1939, the day the Nazis occupy Czechoslovakia, Willy is arrested as a British spy and tortured. After his release the dispossessed family, posing as Hungarians, pay a small-time smuggler to help them escape through Hungary and Germany. On a journey fraught with dangerous incidents, they battle through to keep their toddler son safe, fearing the moment they will be unmasked as Jewish and detained.

306 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

My family lived in Prague and I was 3 when the Nazis invadedCzechoslovakia. We escaped through Hungary, Germany and France to Britain. I grew up in Britain and trained as a physician. Ended up a country doctor in Winchester. Married with 2 boys, who are now grown. We moved to the USA in 1976 and I taught students and residents and practised clinical care at the UNC Medical School in North Carolina. for 35 years.
I wrote short stories and started my trilogy based on my family's escape in WW2
First Vol = The Dragontail Buttonhole. 2016
Second Vol= Cafe Budapest, 2017. One of KIRKUS top 100 Indie books of 2018. Nancy Pearl Award for Historical Fiction
Third Vol = Pavel's War. Published Nov 2019

Reviews

[Lisa Corbit]

The Dragontail Buttonhole is a heart-pulling tale of survival. Peter Curtis uses research and personal memories and stories to recreate his family's journey to escape the Nazi occupation of Prague. Curtis brings his readers along the arduous odyssey with the perfect combination of the overwhelming will to survive (what a mother and father will do to save their family) and a bit of luck. The story moves seamlessly from the description of dining at an expensive art deco world-renowned restaurant to the harrowing details of a young toddler witnessing his mother being strip searched by the Nazi regime. The young couple's story of strength and growth is just the beginning. I look forward to Peter Curtis second novel, Cafe Budapest, that starts with the couple exhausted and penniless in Paris. Coming in 2018.

[Diane]

I have read two of the three books in this series,The Dragontail Buttonhole and Café Budapest. The books are fiction but based on Curtis’ family who escaped from Prague in 1939 when he was a 3 year old boy. The horror of the Holocaust and the treatment of Jews during World War II are very upsetting to me and I was apprehensive about reading these books. I am so pleased that I did read them and am looking forward to reading Book 3. I think that Curtis has done an extraordinary job of showing, but not overwhelming, readers with the difficulties and the degradation that people experienced. I liked that he shows the slow decline in the family’s wealth and comfort and particularly the way he shows the changes and growth in Sophie, the main female character. I liked that he shows things that I had not seen noted before – the dangers in being ill-dressed or looking unkempt, the problems with language, the racist attitudes of the French and other cultures, the bureaucratic difficulties, caring for a child while trying to get to safety. I liked that there are not only bad people who hurt, terrorize and exploit the family, but also unexpected kind people – often when least expected, such as the soldier who knew that the family was Czech and not Hungarian but did not say anything.

[Jim]

Imagine you are Jewish, live in Prague and it is the summer of 1939. PETER CURTIS does not have to imagine that. He lived it and he survived. Peter was two when his family left Prague. He is now a retired doctor and lives in Seattle, Washington.

In his book THE DRAGONTAIL BUTTONHOLE, Peter has documented, in a fiction format, how his family was able to escape from Nazi occupied Prague to Budapest to Germany to Paris. A dragontail buttonhole was a signature buttonhole shape on fine menswear jackets for which Peter's father sold the fabric.

Along the way you will meet some despicable Nazis (I guess that is redundant), a traitorous family member and some very nice strangers. The book is a page turner and you will find yourself delaying meals and sleep in order to find out what happens. This book is the first of a projected trilogy. Book two is nearly ready for publication. I for one cannot wait to see how the family gets from Paris to England and then to the United States.

GO! BUY! READ!

[Irene Frances Olson]

I met Peter Curtis at a book signing late last year and was instantly drawn into his story. Stories have a way of imitating the truth and what you read in this author’s book will stand out perhaps even more considering the backdrop of the current political climate.

We are all aware of the ethnic atrocities that reared their ugly head during World War II but knowing them from afar is quite different from attaching names to the victims; names make it far more personal. Three of the author’s characters, Willy, Sophie, and Pavel will grab your attention right from the start and you will become their greatest cheerleaders as you turn page, after page, after page of The Dragontail Buttonhole.

It has been quite some time since I read a book that was a real page-turner; The Dragontail Buttonhole changed that status for me. I look forward to Mr. Curtis’s next published book – I just hope I don’t have to wait too long.

[Vickie]

Interesting story and characters, but typos were plentiful.

[Eva]

The Dragontail Buttonhole is a page turner and will keep the reader engaged from the beginning. The Kohut family of Willy, Sophie and their young child undergo many challenges in their plan to leave Prague. Despite all these setbacks and the kindness of strangers, it looks like they have moved forward to be once again dealt with setbacks.

During the time when Sophie has no idea where her husband has been held in captivity, she becomes a stronger person and makes some important decisions.

The Peter Curtis novel is filled with detailed and horrific descriptions of the torture carried out by Nazi officials; it’s amazing the couple eventually make it to safe havens.

I look forward to reading the next phase of the couple’s story.

Thank you Goodreads for the book.

[Beth Yeary]

Was finally able to get through this book. It is a depressing tale of a Jewish family's escape from Nazi occupided Czech. Man's crueltry to other human beings is always amazing.

[Dave Bensette]

Facinating