Author: Katie Slattery
A Stranger in Paradise
Herman arrived in California in mid-December 1939, after a long cross-country trip on a Trailways bus. As a new immigrant, all he wanted was a place to put down roots, a job that could sustain him, and a better life than he had lived in Germany under Hitler. What he found was paradise. The letters…
A Community of Immigrants, Chicago 1939
Herman arrived in Chicago to visit with his relatives on a cold and blustery day in November 1939. The city had a large and growing Jewish community, many of whom were actively involved in aiding refugees from Nazi Germany. In fact, without the affidavit of financial support from Herbert Oberfelder, Herman would probably not have…
Two Sons of China
Several months ago, when I received news from the Independent Publishers Book Awards that Immigrant Soldier had earned the bronze medal in the military/wartime fiction category, one of the first things I did (after sending the news to my readers) was to look at the other winners of this niche genre. When I had placed my book…
The Spirit of Dunkirk
“While Herman enjoyed the intoxicating scene at the Zebra Room, the news from Europe continued to spiral downward. . . . Headlines blared the harsh news of the massacre at Dunkirk . . .” Dunkirk marked the dismal failure of the Battle of France in May 1940. In the United States, the word Dunkirk represents…
An Enemy Alien in the Phoney War
Only weeks after Herman’s mother arrived in England, Germany invaded Poland. Within days, Britain and France declared war on Germany in response. “Mother and son now found themselves not only refugees but also classified as enemy aliens in a foreign land.” The internment of such civilian nationals of enemy countries was standard practice at the…
Happy Days at The Wilderness
One of the unexpected bonuses that came with the publication of Immigrant Soldier has been a connection between myself and my English cousin. In the novel, Hazel is the un-named baby who is trundled in her pram to the underground shelter each night by Edith and Clara. Raised in different continents, separated by wartime, the Atlantic Ocean,…
Did That Really Happen?
Readers of Immigrant Soldier often ask me how much of the novel actually happened and how much was born from my imagination. The earliest finished manuscript, with the somewhat deceptive title of Becoming an American, was written as nonfiction for young adults. When I decided to rewrite it as a novel for adults, I wanted it to remain…
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…
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…
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…