K. Lang-Slattery's Blog, page 12

A Community of Immigrants, Chicago 1939

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Herman arrived in Chicago to visit with his relatives on a cold and blustery day in November 1939. The city had a large and growing Jewish community, many of whom were actively involved in aiding refugees from Nazi Germany. In fact, without the affidavit of financial support from Herbert Oberfelder, Herman would probably not have received his US visa. (For information about the Spiegel connection to Herman, please read the blog “Chicago and the Spiegels” posted on November 8, 2014.)

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Two Sons of China

Several months ago, when I received news from the Independent Publishers Book Awards that Immigrant Soldier had earned the bronze medal in the military/wartime fiction category, one of the first things I did (after sending the news to my readers) was to look at the other winners of this niche genre.

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The Spirit of Dunkirk

 

 

“While Herman enjoyed the intoxicating scene at the Zebra Room, the news from Europe continued to spiral downward. . . . Headlines blared the harsh news of the  massacre at Dunkirk . . .”

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An Enemy Alien in the Phoney War

Only weeks after Herman’s mother arrived in England, Germany invaded Poland. Within days, Britain and France declared war on Germany in response. “Mother and son now found themselves not only refugees but also classified as enemy aliens in a foreign land.”

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Happy Days at The Wilderness

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One of the unexpected bonuses that came with the publication of Immigrant Soldier has been a connection between myself and my English cousin. In the novel, Hazel is the un-named baby who is trundled in her pram to the underground shelter each night by Edith and Clara.

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Did That Really Happen?

Readers of Immigrant Soldier often ask me how much of the novel actually happened and how much was born from my imagination.

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Faction—What Is It?

Since the publication of Immigrant Soldier in February of this year, I have been actively marketing it to museum gift shops. I am proud that through these efforts, the novel is now available at quite a few Holocaust and World War II museums across the country. However, several important museums let me know that their policy is to only take nonfiction works.

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In Their Own Words

My interest in the Ritchie Boys goes well beyond my uncle’s story. Luckily, there is a growing selection of memoirs and nonfiction accounts of the experiences of Ritchie Boys available to interested readers. Each man’s story adds to the literature of the Holocaust, World War II, and the “Greatest Generation.” I have selected five that I think will be of interest to those of you who want to know more about the Ritchie Boys. They are all available in bookstores or on Amazon.

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Life on the Ringstrasse and a Ritchie Boy Discovered

 

This year, I read two books that reveal the opulent life of many Jewish families living in Vienna, Austria before World War II. Both books are well worth reading for their intimate view of these families, the leaders of Austrian business, thought, and artistic culture in the first four decades of the twentieth century— of how they lived in Vienna and of how they escaped to find new lives flung across the globe.

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Family Album

Several of my readers have expressed disappointment that Immigrant Soldier does not have photos.     Other than the pictures used on the cover, I decided that because the book was written as a novel, it would be better without photos which might inhibit a reader’s imagination.  You will find some pictures of Herman on various pages of this web-site, including one on the author page of myself with Herman just a few months before he passed away. But for followers of this blog, I thought I would share a small selection of family photos.  I hope you enjoy these glimpses of Herman’s early years. 

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