Overview

Shiksa lifts the veil from what has been called Germany's shameful family secret that cannot be acknowledged, not even privately (see W.G. Sebald, The New Yorker November 4, 2002). The generation of Germans who experienced the apocalyptic times of World War II is passing away, and with them their secrets. Most interested observers must rely on a posteriori histories that lack the emotion and power of the eye-witness account provided by Shiksa. This book presents a view of World War II from the perspective of a young German girl coming of age during the horrors of the Hitler Regime.

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9780615770116

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I was born in Cologne, Germany shortly before Adolph Hitler became the Chancellor in 1933. The bombings attacks on Cologne by the Allies forced my family to relocate several times. In spite of the devastation, I completed high school at the age of fifteen and entered the Art Academy of the University of Cologne where I became skilled at painting and sculpting. World War II had a great influence on my adolescence and the rest of my life. As refugees, our family was relocated to Erlangen where I became a driver for German military officers during the final stages of the war. Shortly thereafter, I was employed as an artist by the United States Army, working in the same building that had housed my German employers. After falling in love with a young American officer, I became a war bride and left Germany in 1947 to immigrate to the United States. My life in the United States included fashion modeling and assisting my husband with his Ph.D. dissertation. While in Paris, doing research at the Bibliotheque Nationale for my husband's thesis, I continued my modeling career and we enjoyed the rich cultural life of Paris. After my husband's education was completed, I earned a BA and an MA in art history from the California State University at Los Angeles with minors in psychology and philosophy. I taught at a Los Angeles high school where I created their curriculum in normal and abnormal psychology; Because of my wartime experiences, I had a natural antipathy against biases which made my classes very popular in that school. In June of 1973 I received a Certificate of Recognition from the NAACP. Art in one form or another is the driving force in my life. Writing Shiksa has fulfilled a life-long ambition. There is very little written about WWII from the point of view of a child of the enemy. Readers of the manuscript wanted to know, What happened after you left Germany? So, I am now busy writing a sequel.

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