Lew's AUTHOR BLOG

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I have read about 80 pages. It is a poignant, illuminating memoir written as a novel. A powerful description of the early Nazi years (up to 1936) seen mainly through the eyes of a young boy. Marienthal was adopted by a Chicago couple in 1936 and went on to a brilliant academic and film career in the U.S.

There are many insights into what was happening and why; here are two …

… contempt, indignities and malice grew throughout the country, suffocated all hope, distorted everyone’s daily life, stripped away personal identity

… the Nazis had gotten to him … it wasn’t the uniforms or the parades or the trappings of power … what attracted him was the Nazi promise of knowing where one belonged in society … he shared an ethos in common with millions of Germans – he loved conformity, while idiosyncrasy was inimical to his sense of well being

I have put the book aside but will return. For now, it is a few years ahead of my timeline in researching and writing CHOOSING HITLER.