Books, Writing, History, and Me
In “Books, Writing, History, and Me” I share my thoughts on travel, cooking, van-life, books, the process of writing, the experiences of an indie-publisher, WWII, the Holocaust, and anything else I feel might be of interest to readers of my books. Please send me comments and let me know what you like and what you want to know more about. Everything in this blog reflects my personal ideas and feelings–a memoir of sorts, it is my perspective and any errors or omissions are mine.
Marthe Cohn, Behind Enemy Lines
Last year in the end of December, I was able to attend a talk by Marthe Cohn, holocaust survivor and French spy. A diminutive woman in her mid-90s, she perched on a high chair with her husband by her side. I was part of the audience gathered at the Laguna Beach Chabad…
The Battle of Saint-Malo in World War II
Ever since I first visited Saint-Malo with my daughter in 1998, I have wanted to return. It is a beautiful old walled city on the Brittany coast of France where extreme tides create a dynamic backdrop. However, it was not until last year when I read All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, that I realized this beautiful city was decimated…
The Archivist of the Ritchie Boys
Whenever I need statistics about the Ritchie Boys, I contact Dan Gross. I have come to call him “The Archivist.” I don’t know if this title is original to me, or if I heard it somewhere, but it is well-deserved. For the last decade, Dan has spent countless hours researching the Ritchie Boys at the…
Meg Waite Clayton – A World War II “Nut.”
I recently had the honor of hosting best-selling author Meg Waite Clayton for a weekend in my home. She had come to Laguna Beach in order to speak at the annual fund-raising Literary Luncheon for an organization dear to my heart .* Earlier I had been asked by the organization to write a short piece about…
The Ritchie Boy Who Helped the Quakers
Rudi Hockenheimer was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1925. It seemed a safe time to his middle-class Jewish parents— Germany was recovering from the devastation of World War I which had ended seven years before—and they were pleased to have a son only a year and a half after the birth of their first baby,…
The Rosenstraße Protest In Nazi Germany
The shifting Nazi directives regarding Jews married to Gentile Germans which I wrote about in my previous blog, also resulted in one of the few successful resistance efforts against Hitler’s Jewish policies. By the winter of 1943, the Third Reich was moving steadily toward the Final Solution. As a 54th birthday gift to the Führer…
Nazi Policy and the Intermarriage and Mischling Dilemma
The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 (see blog “Loss of Citizenship the Nuremberg Way,” posted May 29, 2015) continued to be amended and fine-tuned for the next four years. Ever stricter, these laws codified Hitler’s anti-Jewish policy and gave the Nazi regime deadly control over the Jews living in Germany and the occupied countries. One…
The Ritchie Boys and Questions of Death and Spies
Last November, when I spoke to the Hot Springs Women’s Club about Immigrant Soldier, I was asked two questions regarding the Ritchie Boys I had never fielded before. One of the ladies wanted to know how many, if any, Ritchie Boys were killed in action. Another lady inquired if any of the Ritchie-trained men were later…
Book Groups Read Immigrant Soldier Together
In the last few months, several book clubs have let me know that they have read or are planning to read Immigrant Soldier together as a group. Most of the groups are located near me, in Southern California. In some cases, they have invited me to attend their discussion evening, a prospect both intimidating and exciting. Recently…
The Real Hugo
In Immigrant Soldier, Herman recalls his childhood days as he sits in a deck chair during the stormy passage to America. He remembers the tension in the sunny, well-furnished home on Bernard Strasse and his mother’s unhappiness. When I first wrote this section of the book, much of the information I knew about Hugo had to…