FriedlHundreds of books have been published about the atrocities that occurred in World War II. Now it is time to complete the story by telling the other side – the story of a non-Jewish girl and what she endured. The fact that Adolf Hitler attempted to annihilate the Jewish race has been rightfully taught to subsequent generations to insure that something as heinous as The Holocaust is never repeated. Unfortunately, many people have mistakenly assumed that the entire German population was in line with the Nazi dogma and shared Hitler’s irrational hatred and diabolical solutions. Friedl tells another side of the story. Her true story shows many beliefs to be quite wrong. Friedl’s story is divided into two parts, which helps the reader absorb the duality of her wartime experiences. Book One relates to her childhood years and her loving family, her musical development, her orders to leave her music and work in support of the war effort, her conscription into the Nazi Army and her many horrible wartime experiences far, far from home. In Book Two, Friedl begins her post-war journey home. We travel with her as far as the train tracks allow and then she begins to walk and hitchhike. As she reaches the American Army controlled border, she, as all returning Germans did, is detained until all formal paperwork is completed and entrance into Germany is authorized. This begins a six-week-plus adventure, not knowing if her family has survived, during which she is “adopted” by a German farm couple who had recently lost a daughter and a growing friendship with a German-speaking American Sergeant Jackson. Finally her entrance into her homeland is authorized. Through her eyes we travel on the final leg of her journey to Frankfurt while viewing the horror, destruction, and shambles of the former “most perfectly preserved medieval city,” her beloved Frankfurt. |
