Author: Katie Slattery
The Phoney War
Waiting for the Blitzkrieg ON SEPTEMBER 3, 1939, ENGLAND declared war on Germany. Shortly after the radio announcement by the prime minister, the first air-raid warning siren of WWII blared across London. In my historical novel, Ashes and Ruins, Edith’s entire family—Edith, her husband, her mother, her brother, and her infant daughter—rushed to their stone-lined…
Word Matters
WRITERS KNOW that the words we choose make a difference. Synonym lists, whether in our head, on the internet, or in a book, are frequent go-tos when searching for the perfect word for a sentence. As a writer of stories and articles about WWII, my decisions can be fraught, especially as even synonyms come loaded…
In the Kitchen with Doctor Carrot
Recipes for Carrot Salad, Carrot Marmalade, and Carrot Cookies What would Edith (a character both real and fictional in the novel Ashes and Ruins) have done with a bounty of carrots? Dr. Carrot, an ubiquitous cartoon carrot-man, urged Brits to eat lots of the easily grown orange veggie. Unlike onions, citrus fruit, and fish (also…
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…