Category: Characters-Immigrant-Soldier
The Long Path to Auschwitz – Part 3
Racial Hate Laws One Step at a Time, with Family Notes Part III: 1939 to 1941: Kristallnacht to the Final Solution Kristallnacht: A Nazi Pogrom On the night of November 9–10, 1938, a nationwide anti-Jewish riot swept across Germany. Twenty-four hours of state-sponsored terror ensued. Synagogues were burned while firefighters watched, Jewish-owned shops were vandalized…
The Long Path to Auschwitz – Part 2
Racial Hate Laws One Step at a Time, with Family Notes: An Article in Three Parts Part II: Summer 1935 to 1938: The Nuremberg Laws, Aryanization, Emigration, and the Anschluss. The Nuremberg Laws: A biological solution to assimilation. Less than a month after the closing ceremonies of the Berlin Olympics, the eighth annual Nuremberg Rally…
The Long Path to Auschwitz: A Three-Part Article
Racial Hate Laws One Step at a Time, with Family Notes Prologue WHEN I WROTE ASHES AND RUINS, the historical novel based on the true experiences of my grandmother Clara, I knew some regular readers of Holocaust novels would be puzzled by the absence of terror and misery. The majority of books about the Jewish…
Nazi Policy and the Intermarriage and Mischling Dilemma
THE NUREMBERG RACE LAWS OF 1935 (see post, “How German Jews Lost Their Citizenship,” May 16, 2026) 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 of…
How German Jews Lost Their Birthright Citizenship
Originally published as Loss of Citizenship the Nuremberg Way on May 29, 2015 on my personal blog, this article has been slightly modified to make it more current. Also published on kathrynslattery.substack.com on 05/09/2026 * In the second chapter of Immigrant Soldier, Herman speeds toward home on his motorcycle, his mind a swirl of thoughts.…
Why Did Jews Stay So Long in Nazi Germany?
READERS OF MY HISTORICAL NOVEL, Immigrant Soldier, have asked me why the two main characters remained in Germany after Hitler came to power. Indeed, along with a few kind words, one reader wrote in a review, “I really didn’t like Clara, because she stayed too long in Germany. Why didn’t she leave earlier?” This is…
Remember Kristallnacht
November 9, 2025, is the 87th Anniversary of Kristallnacht In the dark hours of the night of November 9, 1938, a Nazi-instigated pogrom (a violent attack on an ethnic or religious group with the aim of massacre or expulsion) erupted across Germany and Austria. This intense violence against Jews and the destruction of Jewish property lasted…
Finding My Jewish Story
I EXPERIENCED EUROPE for the first time on a family trip in the summer of 1960. My seventeen-year-old romantic heart fell in love with Venice with its pastel buildings, sparkling water, twisting alleyways, and spires gleaming in the sun. Even the presence of my mother with her rules and judgements and my little sister with…
Finding the Women’s Story Buried in Immigrant Soldier
A Mother and Daughter Relationship Revealed. I WAS COMPELLED TO WRITE my first novel, Immigrant Soldier, because the true story of my uncle’s role in Patton’s Third Army grabbed me and would not let me go. Herman’s Jewish blood branded him in Nazi eyes, forced him to flee his homeland, and landed him in the…