K. Lang-Slattery's Blog, page 12
July 25, 2015
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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July 17, 2015
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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July 11, 2015
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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July 4, 2015
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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June 26, 2015
Immigrant Soldier Gets a Facelift
Recently I spent a few mornings and afternoons talking to ladies at my gym where the owner kindly let me set up a table and bring copies of Immigrant Soldier to sell. As usual, people told me the WWII stories of their relatives, asked me how long it took me to write the book, and wanted to know if I was working on another project. But the thing I began to notice was that most of the ladies who purchased the book commented that they were buying it for an uncle, father, or husband. Luckily, it was the week before Father's Day.
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June 18, 2015
Meiningen, A Hometown Revisited
Both my father and Herman had fond memories of their hometown, Meiningen, located in the southern part of the state of Thuringia, Germany, and just over the border into what was, from 1945 until 1990, East Germany. I was able to travel there in the Spring of 1991 with my elderly parents and one of my sisters. The thing that made the biggest impression on me was the deserted border crossing about 15 miles before we arrived in town. The stark gate and concrete barriers scarred the gently rolling green hills and reminded us why this was my father’s first trip home since he left in 1934.
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June 12, 2015
Beyond Anne Frank: Holocaust Books for Youth and Teens.
Summer is almost here. It is a good time to encourage students, who are freed from homework and after-school sports, to expand their reading beyond school-mandated curriculum. The Diary of Anne Frank is widely used as a way to teach young people about the Holocaust, as well as a tool to challenge prejudice and promote respect for others. This diary of a 13-year-old girl has become required reading in many 7th, 8th or 9th grade English classes. The 10 books listed below, in the order of the age group for which they were written, can broaden a student’s perspective beyond Anne Frank.
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June 5, 2015
Kindererziehung or Growing up with Struwwelpeter
May 29, 2015
Loss of Citizenship the Nuremberg Way
In the second chapter of Immigrant Soldier, Herman speeds toward home on his motorcycle, his mind a swirl of thoughts.
“He knew it was finally time for him to make a move, but he had no idea how to escape. He was without a passport and no longer considered a citizen of the German nation. He had been declared a Jew, even though he had never worn a yarmulke, lit a Hanukkah candle, or set foot in a synagogue. He knew nothing of Jewish culture or religion, but all four of his grandparents had been Jews long ago, and now that was all that counted in the Third Reich.”
How did Herman and millions of other German citizens of Jewish heritage lose their civil rights overnight?
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May 21, 2015
How Old Does It Have to Be?
Recently I gave a talk about Immigrant Soldier to a local organization and, during the Q & A session, a lady in the audience took issue with calling the book historical fiction. From her perspective, World War II seemed too recent. “After all,” she said, “to my parents this was their life! And I was born during those years, so it’s not really history to me, either. Shouldn’t a book called historical fiction take place in a much more distant past?"
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