Author: Katie Slattery
Soup with Potato Pete
Vichyssoise and Potage of Potatoes and Leeks, both with Sorrel Butter DURING WORLD WAR II in the UK, every child and every housewife knew Potato Pete. The rotund, anthropomorphic potato wore a jaunty hat, spats, and well-polished black shoes. He greeted the kids and their mothers from posters, newspaper ads, and the popular radio show,…
Eating, Living, and Starving on the Ration
FOR THOSE WHO LIVED THROUGH WORLD WAR II, food rationing was a core experience. While writing Ashes and Ruins, I began to wonder: Did rationing in Japan differ from rationing in Germany? Was rationing in the US anything like the ration policy in Britain? With these questions in my head, I dove into the research…
The Camp Kitchener Rescue
STORIES ABOUND ABOUT THE KINDERTRANSPORT and the rescue of thousands of children from the clutches of the Nazis in the early days of 1939. At the same time, but lesser known because it came without images of small children to stir a viewer’s heart, the Camp Kitchener Rescue saved countless Jewish men held in German…
Three Waves of Emigration: Three Visas
Roads to Safety for German-Jewish Refugees AFTER THE RISE OF THE NAZI REGIME, life in Germany became difficult for citizens of Jewish heritage. Some Jews, like my father, fled immediately after Hitler came to power. Others, like my grandmother, waited, trying to accommodate their lives to the new reality. As conditions for Jews became increasingly…
A Day With Beban
Excerpt from Wherever the Road Leads, by K. Lang-Slattery In 1972, Americans were well-liked in Persia. The Iranian government was firmly in the hands of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a secular Muslim who loved all things Western. The Shah was the latest ruler in a monarchy that had lasted 2,500 years, a continuous line since…
Books and Bombs
Or What Women (and Men) Read During the Blitz WHAT WOULD YOU READ if bombs were falling every night while you hunkered down in a crowded bomb shelter with only the light of a torch (a flashlight) to illuminate the page? During such times, it’s a common reaction to want to immerse oneself in a…
The Crossing
An excerpt from my memoir, Wherever the Road Leads. ON AN APRIL AFTERNOON in 1972, Tom and I stood at the high counter of the ferry office in the North African port of Tunis. That morning we had eaten breakfast in our van, surrounded by the white, sun-gilded columns of Carthage. Before we embarked on…
Haiku, The Allure of Three Lines
IN COLLEGE, I DISCOVERED that short non-rhyming poetry suited me better than the long, metered, classical poems I struggled to understand. After earning a dreary grade in a sophomore poetry class, I concluded I would be happier as an art major than studying English literature as planned. In art, I found satisfaction in the physical…
Mother and Daughter Stories I have Loved
DESPITE THE INEVITABLE UPS AND DOWNS and tangles of emotion, a strong bond between a mother and her daughter can withstand the test of time. My novel, Ashes and Ruins, is dedicated to all mothers and daughters who face the world together. The story, inspired by the relationship between my grandmother and my aunt, tells of a…
Schlaraffia, A Beacon of Laughter in Nazi Germany
After I wrote my three-part article about Jewish life in Nazi Germany, I began to wonder if there was any way for an assimilated German-Jewish man in the 1930s, a man like my grandfather, Hugo Lang, to escape his worries and concerns for an evening. A way to inject some fun into his serious life.…