German Tale: A Girl's Survival in the Post-Nazi Years

First-hand accounts such as this book are really priceless in terms of understanding what really happenned in Germany during and after the War. Should be required reading in any history class.

Having served in the occupation forces in Germany at the end of WW2. it is only now, after having read "German Girl", that I realize how unaware I was of the true extent of the German peoples struggle to survive. German pride and discipline enabled the general population to mask the true picture of how difficult life really was for them. So, it is not surprising that while I lived amongst them, I never was fully aware of their plight. The author Erika Karres paints a very realistic picture of what life was like during the last phases of the war and on into the post war occupation period. She honestly and courageously bares her heart and soul, and in vivid detail describes what she saw and felt. I admired her strength of character, endurance and questioning nature as she faced the hopeless and devastated world in which she found herself. A good example of a German that didn't approve of the depravity and wickedness of the Nazi regime, and risked questioning and speaking out against it.I highly recommend this exciting and well written book. It tends to remind one that there are decent human beings in this world, and their courage and endurance under seemingly impossible conditions is a source of strength and hope.Harold Hendler

"All I have ever know is having to scrounge around for food. But that's not so bad if you have the one thing you deperately need." This is not some sentimental or romantic fairy tale. This is an eyes-wide-open look at what life was like for one little girl and her family trying to scrath out a life in Germany from her birth in 1939 through the 1950s. She struggles with her siblings (10 at one point) just to feed and cloth themselves. Her mother dies when she is just 6 years old from blood clots. Her step mother his on a continual slide towards total mental breakdown. Their house is occupied in turn by American and French forces. She eventually begins aromance with an American soldier who is there as part of the occupation force. Through it all she keeps asking what happened to the Jews? What happened to Germany? And she survives. With her mind and soul severely bruised, but intact. If you want an easy read that won't challenge you, then move on. But, if you would prefer to take a dose of reality and read about a somebody who faced a world gone cruelly insane - and survived to tell us about it, then check out this book. Thank you, Erika, for sharing your story with us. I think we all have to find our own answer to the question you asked your father: "Is apolitical the same as amoral?"

Erika Shearin Karres tells the story of thousands of innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of Hitler's devastating rule.It is an honest account of events as they unfolded. Being born immediately after WWII in Germany myself, I can attest to the truth of her memoirs which history has chosen to ignore. There are hundreds of thousands of us who permanently suffer the pain and are scarred for life due to extreme poverty, destroyed and torn apart families and the personally devastating collective guilt placed on our shoulders during our early years. The descrimination was merciless and noone had the courage to speak up. However, being a published writer myself, I have for the past two years been working on my own memoirs of my painful growing up in post-Nazi Germany.The book is now in the hands of my editor. Like Erika, I had to leave Germany and come to the United States in order to breathe. However, the punishment for the sins of our "fathers" is not over. Just last year I was the target of descrimination, something that is hard to cope with when there is nothing but the fact that I was born in post-Nazi Germany gives others the right to condem me for something I did not do. I give great credit to Erika for speaking out, for opening the door for others to tell their stories and undergo a personal catharsis that is long overdue. Innocent German people suffered greatly in many ways.Until now, nobody wanted to acknowledge that fact! It is time we had a voice.

Dr.Shearin-Karras' account confirms the truth that no one in Europe escaped being victims of the Nazis. Her autobiography as a member of an ancient, privileged German family illustrates the depths of misery and premature deaths they endured during and after World War II. The book also relates how dissent was crushed by the Gestapo. The fear, reinforced by disappearances, left the people morally paralyzed. Then, after the war, devastating to the losers, they were beset by survivor's guilt in addition to guilt for being German--for being a member of a nation responsible for so many horrors. She shows us with unblinking honesty a wide range of reactions to cataclysmic conditions, the compassion, the escape, the denial, the self-hatred. The book ends with the author's departure for the United States, but at times one wonders whether the narrator will survive. Written in a straight-forward, unsentimental style, the book shows a wide range of survival stories that astonish, dismay, and sometimes inspire, much in the same manner as the grim accounts of the camps by Elie Wiesel.