My Germany: A Jewish Writer Returns to the World His Parents Escaped

by Lev Raphael

Overview

Haunted by his parents’ horrific suffering and traumatic losses under Nazi rule, Lev Raphael grew up loathing everything German. Those feelings shaped his Jewish identity, his life, and his career. While researching his mother’s war years after her death, he discovers a distant relative living in the very city where she had worked in a slave labor camp, found freedom, and met his father. Soon after, Raphael is launched on book tours in Germany and, in the process, redefines himself as someone unafraid to face the past and let it go.

Bookmarks, “Top Ten Nonfiction Titles of 2009”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299231538
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	04/07/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Lev Raphael has spoken about his work on three continents and has been publishing fiction and prose about the Second Generation for more than thirty years—longer than any other American author. His nineteen books include The German Money, Writing a Jewish Life, and Dancing on Tisha B’Av. He lives in Okemos, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments       

Prologue: A Tale of Two Trains   

Part One: Haunted House       

Part Two: Mysterious Jews       

Part Three: Voyage of Discovery       

Epilogue: Legacies       

Works Consulted

Editorial Reviews

Raphael contributes again to the genre of second-generation Holocaust literature in which he is a pioneer. . . . True to his other works, his book is powerful and captivating to the end, painting vivid pictures of his parents’ suffering, his hatred of Germany, and eventually his healing and reconciliation.”—Library Journal

“There is easy grace to this intense memoir about Jewish author Raphael’s emotional and cultural reconciliation with Germany. Part genealogical study, part book tour travelogue and part coming-out account, the author’s stark portrayal of religious, sexual and literary evolution is a compassionate record of one man’s several liberations.”—Richard Labonte, Bookmarks, “Top Ten Nonfiction Titles of 2009”

“A cleansing, passionate memoir.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Raphael’s struggle to emotionally and culturally reconcile with a Germany he could never forgive makes for somber reading. But his struggle to balance his identity as a Jew and a gay man is one even those outside this world can appreciate.”—EDGE

From the Publisher