His death by suicide is not hard to understand, in fact if one reads very carefully between the lines of the last pages of his book, he is a depressed man without a country. He used words like "tortured heart" and "tormenting clairvoyance" (419); those allusions give hints. QUESTION FOUR: My personal reflections tend to revolve around Zweig's movements and Zweig's thoughts in the years leading up to the takeover of Austria, as he could clearly see the Jewish community - and all of Europe - was in for a very rough ride. I reflect on what I believe I might have done had I been in his shoes. Surely I would have tried to spirit my aging mother out of Austria before it was too late. Also, I would have gone to America and tried to convince the political leaders and members of the media that Europe was about to be overtaken by a madman...

I would have held press conferences in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, trying to stir up support for the idea that intervention by the West was going to be the only way Hitler could be stopped from seizing the riches and the resources from every European country and murdering millions.
Of Zweig's experiences that I find most similar to my own, are those in which he was incredulous that his Jewish friends and colleagues weren't frightened to death, but instead believed that Hitler's terror wouldn't last. I know I would have been perceiving months ahead of time what this fanatic had in mind, and I would have been far away much sooner than Zweig was. All the clues were in place; it should have been…