A Mother and Daughter Relationship Revealed.
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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 U.S. Army where he was trained to interrogate German prisoners of war.
Though the story was gripping—a combination of a coming-of-age story, an immigrant tale, and a wartime adventure—I found that writing from the point of view of a young man was sometimes an out-of-body experience. As a woman in my late 70s, my experience of male emotions and attitudes came to me, at best, secondhand, from my father, various boyfriends, my husband, and my son. Writing about Herman’s days in the army was especially difficult because none of the men I knew well, except my son, served in the military, and he came back from Afghanistan and Iraq unwilling to talk about his experiences.
During the months I spent writing that first novel (ok, let’s be honest… the years!), the idea of writing a woman’s story always bubbled below the surface. The next book I wrote was indeed a story told by a woman, my own memoir, but thoughts of the women from Immigrant Soldier kept circling my mind. My grandmother Clara (Herman’s mother) and my aunt Edith (Herman’s sister) spoke to me, begging me to write about them.
I hesitated because I was unsure how to make their quieter story work as a novel. My two women relatives did nothing unusual in any big, heroic sense. They were not spies or resistance fighters, ambulance drivers, or code breakers. They did not suffer in concentration camps or hide in basements, sewers, or forests. Yet, I knew instinctively that they represented something important—women who waited, made do, worked hard, worried about their loved ones, and protected their children. They were the strength behind the heroes. I also have come to understand that in many small and quiet acts, Clara and Edith were heroes too.
One of the reader reviews for Immigrant Soldier carried, along with its kind words, a criticism of Herman’s mother. “I really didn’t like Clara,” the reviewer wrote, “because she stayed too long in Germany. Why didn’t she leave earlier?”
These words hurt in a visceral way and lingered in my mind. I wondered what I could do to help readers love Clara as much as I did. Perhaps if I explained more fully Clara’s situation and her reasons for lingering, readers could empathize with her choices. Like many other Jews who thought of Germany as their homeland, she had no idea that the slow increments of Nazi suppression and anti-Semitic legislation were leading to the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka. What we see now with clear hindsight was unimaginable to Clara in the 1930s.
Most of all, this story spoke to me as a mother blessed with a deep and strong relationship with my own daughter, a relationship that can (and has) weathered emotional ups and downs. Clara and Edith’s relationship, forged by their need to stand together, helped them endure amidst the turmoil of wartime. I would write of the losses and loves of a middle-aged woman, of her emotional depths, and of her mixed feelings as she watched her daughter journey from girlhood to a sexually awakened womanhood.
The evolving relationship between a mother and daughter, the incremental nature of anti-Semitic laws in Nazi Germany, and the quiet heroism of women on the home front would be my guiding themes. As the novel developed, I realized that PTSD and a woman’s right to choose, two issues with current significance, were also part of the story. These themes will, I hope, make Ashes and Ruins both universal and relevant to today’s readers.
This article originally appeared in my new Substack newsletter,
Wherever the Word Leads.
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