K. Lang-Slattery's Blog, page 13
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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May 3, 2015
Molly Speaks on Love and War
In Immigrant Soldier, the Story of a Ritchie Boy, Molly is Herman’s first love. She is based on a real young woman, though I have changed her name and added details too private for Herman to tell me. I thought it would be interesting to look into Molly’s heart. How did she feel about her brief affair with a young refugee from Hitler’s Germany?
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May 2, 2015
Remembering V-E Day
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On May 8, 1945, the world erupted in celebrations. With the acceptance of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender by the Allies, the fighting in Europe was finally over. In commemoration of the 70th anniversary of victory in Europe, I decided to speak to a few Ritchie Boys and ask them to remember where they were on that day 70 years ago.
Surviving Ritchie Boys are now in their 90s and many are no longer in good health, so I am very grateful for those gentlemen who made the effort to get back to me when I posed the question to them via an e-mail blast.
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April 14, 2015
An Unexpected Answer
A few weeks ago, one of my readers asked me an interesting question. “How did the Nazis find all the Jewish people, especially people like Herman’s family who didn’t practice the religion?” My first response was the usual, perhaps obvious, one. “The German’s were meticulous record keepers,” I explained. “They gathered information from city, church, and synagogue records of births, baptisms, bar mitzvahs, and marriages, which in the past routinely included religious affiliation.”
But even as I spoke, I realized that this answer was not adequate.
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Verity
"Are you working on a new project and, if so, what is it?”
With my first novel barely off the press, it is a nearly impossible idea for me to contemplate. Yet, forced by the regularity with which this question is asked of me, I began to think about it. What subject would engage me as much as the story of Immigrant Soldier, the Story of a Ritchie Boy? If there is another book in me, I want it to be about a female character and, to simplify research, also a World War II story.
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