Martha's father was a physician, and her mother was a dentist. Her husband, Karl, was a college professor. In 1938, her world changed overnight. Karl lost his job and the doctorate expected in June 1938. Seven months pregnant with her younger child, she obtained three scarce American visas. On the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 2009 something remarkable happened. Ilse discovered that Karl's dissertation had survived the war and the Holocaust in the archives of the Vienna University of Economics archives. The book ends with this discovery, but the story does not. Ilse visited the university in 2011 and requested a posthumous doctorate for her father, in the cause of justice. The request was denied, but something more remarkable came of her persistence. The University discovered the names of 150 expelled scholars who were exiled or murdered. A memorial site and monument to honor them will be dedicated in 2014. A website listing each expelled scholar by name begins, on the homepage, with Karl's story, and his biography cites Falling Uphill.
