11/01/2001 BOOKLIST REVIEW

Karres, Erika Shearin. A German Tale: A Girl Surviving Hitler's Legacy. Nov. 2001. 240p. Barricade, $22 (1-56980-221-1). 943.086

Karres, who was born in Magdeburg, Germany, two weeks after Germany's September 1939 invasion of Poland, begins her graphic memoir with an account of her and her mother, brother, and two sisters fleeing hundreds of miles across Germany looking for a place safe from Allied bombing. Later, her mother died and her father-back from the war-tried to find food to keep them alive. they set out on another laborious journey, sleeping in barns or in farmers' fields. When they finally reached the safety of their grandmother's house in Bavaria, French soldiers took over the rooms and the small amount of food that was available. Still later, Karres' father remarried a woman with children of her own. Karres, a Christian, describes how-in the postwar years-the family was desperately poor, begging for food. But now there is "no sign there's ever been a war here... It's as if Dachau was just a brief nightmare."

-George Cohen
Booklist

Following in the steps of Angela’s Ashes, this is a moving memoir of a German girl growing up amidst the total destruction that was Germany during and after World War II.

She was an innocent child during the Nazi reign, but she struggled through her childhood and adolescence, not only with the poverty that gripped post-war Germany, but with the shame of not knowing to what extent her father participated in the Holocaust.

When the author confronted her father about his participation, he said he was "apolitical." When she asked if that was the same as "amoral," he slapped her.

In a unique prose style she vividly recounts a life of poverty during which she and her siblings would wait for the American occupation soldiers to finish their meals so they could lick their plates.

This touching memoir tells the often-forgotten story of the fate of the guiltless German children who suffered after their country was ravaged by Hitler’s war

Price: $22.00
Pages: 240
Format: Cloth
Trim Size: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
ISBN: 1-56980-221-1
Pub Month: November
Rights: World
Purchase A German Tale @ Amazon.com

An Excerpt from A German Tale:
"…At 13, I shoot up several centimeters and leave my two older sisters behind.
When I corner my father one day, I can now look him straight in the eyes. They are light gray like those rocks on top of the Alps that have been exposed to the elements for thousands of years.
What happened with the Jews? I ask.
He's not able to meet my eyes. I don't know.
I stand there facing him, arms folded. I notice I'm holding my breath.
It was like this, he says, looking over my shoulder. Once I wanted to see what all that big to-do was all about. So I went to a Nazi rally. It was held inside that beautiful auditorium. Do you remember it? Of course, it was bombed out but it was the one built in the early style of-
I cut him off. And? My voice is hard. So what? I don't care about the auditorium.
A party boss was speaking. What a clown, let me tell you. Short guy, beer belly, greasy lederhosen, suspenders, knee socks, tassels. The works. Whenever he finished a sentence, everybody jumped up. Everybody. They raised their arms in a Nazi salute and screamed Heil Hitler. That noise and all those idiots. He's looking at me now. Ach Gott, it was disgusting.
What did you do?
I didn't jump up or salute. That's for sure. What do you think I am?… A pause… So these young thugs start beating me over the head every time I don't jump up. They rolled up a stack of programs and let me have it. Whack-whack. On top of my head every time. Believe me, I got out of there just as fast as I could.
I let my breath out. That's what I've been waiting for all my life, answers. The truth.
Another deep breath: And then?
Then nothing.
My heart plummets. That's it?…You walked out of some damn Nazi rally?
No, of course not. There was a wonderful Jewish-owned store in town… The owner and I were the best of friends. Like brothers really. We could talk about everything. Philosophy, politics, religion. So of course I kept going there. To pick up a few items, play some chess. You know, it was like a regular corner store where you drop in. Stay as long as you like. One day I open the newspaper and see pictures of some of the people who went there with the caption: Enemies of the People. Mensch, did I get furious. Enraged that's how I felt. Violated. Those Nazi assholes, how dare they!
And then what? I say feeling better again.
Then nothing. I stopped going there. What good would it have done having my picture in the paper? Hmm? His hand lands on my shoulder. He's shaking me, trying to make me understand. Don't forget, I had a wife and kids to think about. Naturally first I checked on those poor people already branded Enemy of the People. Know what happened to them?
No.
They were hauled off in the middle of the night and never heard from again.
I shrug his hand off. Then what did you do? I notice I'm holding my breath again.
A sigh. You know,
I was always apolitical.
Is that the same as amoral?
He looks at me hard. Hauls back and slaps me across the face…"