Mission to the City

The book records Karl Holm's personal account of his work in Ørkenen Sur, a shanty town in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn during the worst years of the Depression. Here, in the shadow of Manhattan, he found life at its grimmest, but life that responded to practical love expressed in the form of shelter, food, and the Christian message. Follow his adventures as a cat led him to a desperately ill man. Follow him on his rounds in the hospitals, reconnecting the ill and dying to their families. Joblessness, destitution, suicide, and murder were only part of his daily life. But there was also grace, love, and an unquenchable spirit. Who knew that he could be a sports reporter writing about crew races? This was a Norwegian-American at his best. Parts of the book, such as the closing account of Christmas Eve, could have been written by Charles Dickens. This is an account to inspire people today as much as then. This book was translated by Arnold E. Andersen, MD, his grandson, with the assistance of Kari Schussler.