I was told that my book is an enchanting Love Story.

Actually it is, and it happened in a unique and dangerous time. Most readers laughed and cried. A lot could not stop reading and read through the whole night.

My autobiography is written with a positive, even cheerful attitude. That was our only way to survive. The book brings history from the point of view of a female. But most of all it presents the face of the ordinary German, which had been distorted by Hitler's atrocities, and it shows that we Germans suffered under that monster as cruelly as many other victims. The Hitler time and the war destroyed a lot but also gave us an overwhelming gratitude just to be alive and thankful for everything life has to offer. It has put money and all earthly possessions in the right perspective.

Born in 1919 soon after the First World War, I describe my life from childhood until our immigration to the United States iin 1955, a happy childhood in Berlin where our grandmother was part of a loving family, reading the bible and telling fairy-tales. I also tell about my near-death ordeal at the hands of an escaped killer. Then came the devastating depression and the sudden poverty of my family. In 1933 Hitler took over. Soon the rule of the Führer became a grim nightmare, and the came the war, the horrible war with the merciless bombing. In the midst of it all was love and marriage, the crib death of a child, and the murderous taking of Berlin.

After that we encountered the Russians, first the nice ones who were followed by the savage, cruel ones, who raped nearly all the women. Later we endured the terrible starvation. Finally, we made our flight to the Americans in the West of Berlin. Next was our financial struggle and miraculous success, soon ruined by our inexperience. And then came the scary blockade and the blissful airlift, and eventually, economic recovery. I also describe the heartbreaking story of Wassil, a Russian soldier who fell in love with me and probably paid for his life when he tried to desert the Russian army.

We are among the few Germans still alive who hated the Nazis, lived through it all and are still able to tell the tale.