To Lose a War: Memories of a German Girl

"To Lose A War" by Regina Maria Shelton. Subtitled: "Memories Of a German Girl". Southern Illinois University Press, 1982.This is a very personal memoir of a young German girl, growing up during the Second World War. Born in 1927, Regina Maria was just reaching womanhood when the Soviet tanks were entering eastern Germany: Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia, etc. She begins the book with a brief story concerning visiting modern Communistic German in the 1980s, and, with one anecdote, she makes the point that the Communistic German border guards were as repressive, if not more so, than the old Nazi party members. Then, in the next chapter, she jumps to a nostalgic but wonderfully vivid description of Christmas Past, before the War: "Christmas began on the day that Mama melted the butter and honey in an enormous tin pan..." (p. 19). I have to tell my own children that Christmas Eve was once a fast day, with no eating until Midnight Mass, and I sense a kinship of the Past gone by with this writer, even though my Christmases were in NYC and hers in Germany.Her last chapter deals with what the Poles have done to her hometown, her childhood town. "My sentimental quest for my hometown is over. I have been walking in the streets of Klodzko, Poland. Glatz has ceased to exist save in my memories." (P. 218). She has written an interesting and complete personal history of living in a few decades in a town in Silesia, decades which saw the rise and fall of many.

This book is a story which could be true for thousands of Germans expelled from their homeland, Silesia. The account of the Russian invasion and Polish take-over moved me very much and gave me a more clear picture of what my parents went through. As the author goes back to her homeland to visit I felt a new compassion for the Polish population, who inherited this land, due to the author's insight and integrity. This both is well worth reading even if your personal history is not intertwined with Silesia.