All for You: A World War II Family Memoir of Love, Separation, and Loss

by Dena Rueb Romero

Overview

Emil, a Jewish man in 1930s Germany, loves Deta, a Lutheran, but Nazi racial purity laws forbid their marriage. Desperate to find a place where their love can survive, they must separate to get away. Deta leaves for England, but Emil has to overcome red tape, resistance from his aging parents, and his own ambivalence before he can embark for America. With only telegrams and letters from Deta to sustain him, he does all he can to bring her and his family to America. But the clock is ticking as the war breaks out and the Nazis tighten their stranglehold.

From the heartbreaking news of November 10, 1938 (Kristallnacht) to the horrific revelations after the German surrender in 1945, Emil’s story runs the course of the war. Can he make his way in this new world? Will he be reunited with his beloved Deta? And will he ever see his family again?

Told by Emil’s daughter with the help of letters and historical documents, All for You is a true story about love overcoming despair and the impact the Holocaust continues to have on the rising generation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647426545
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	05/07/2024
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	821,516
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Dena Rueb Romero grew up in Hanover, New Hampshire, the daughter of a Lutheran mother and a Jewish father, both refugees from Nazi Germany. She graduated from Brandeis University and received an MA in English from the University of Virginia and an MSW from Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. Her previous publications include Gretel’s Albums, a collaborative bilingual internet project with researcher Bernhild Voegel (www.birdstage.net/kleeblatt), and an essay about German citizenship in A Place They Called Home: Reclaiming Citizenship, Stories of a New Jewish Return to Germany. All for You is her first full-length book. Dena still lives in Hanover, where she sings in a women’s chorus, volunteers at a daycare center, and works with a recently arrived refugee family.

Editorial Reviews

. . . uniquely poignant . . . An affecting story of ordinary perseverance during terrible times.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“How do you choose between your family or your lover? That is the life-and-death struggle in All for You. Told with poignancy and woven through with excellent research, Rueb Romero explores, in so many new ways, what it means to be a refugee with loved ones left behind, waiting for you to rescue them.”
—Mimi Schwartz, author of Good Neighbors, Bad Times Revisited

“All for You is Dena Romero’s deeply researched and heartfelt story of her parents’ journey out of Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. Neatly embedding her own family story within the wider historical context of World War II, Romero has written a truly unusual and powerful book that shows how every Holocaust story is unique.”
—Dr. Phyllis Deutsch, PhD, lecturer at Dartmouth College and former editor-in-chief of University Press of New England

“This deeply personal account—part biography, part autobiography—of the extraordinary story of two families needed to be told. Dena Romero shows how personal fate is inextricably intertwined with historical circumstances. Concurrently but no less powerful is the narrative of her Protestant mother’s steadfastness in enduring many years of separation in order to finally be reunited with her Jewish beloved. Romero shows us that her own story is put together of piecemeal information, though she has researched documents thoroughly and astutely.”
—Dr. Ulrike Rainer, Associate Professor Emerita, Department of German Studies, Dartmouth College

“Dena Romero brings to life her parents’ odyssey and boundless patience during long years of separation, uncertainty, and hardship. Supported by miraculously preserved documents, the book tracks with remarkable sensitivity the harrowing 1930s and 1940s in vile Nazi Germany, dithering Britain, and standoffish America. It is a moving, tragic story captivatingly told.”
—Dr. Franz Baumann, Vice President of the Academic Council on the United Nations System; former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations; and former NYU visiting Professor of International Relations

“A poignant family memoir set against the tumultuous background of World War II and the Holocaust. In tracing the struggles of her parents to escape Nazi Germany and build a new life in America, Dena Rueb Romero explores the agonizing choices and traumas familiar to generations of political refugees the world over. She shows how a stubborn belief in decency and kindness along with the human qualities of adaptability and persistence can provide a path to healing, enabling love to triumph over hate.”
—Michael Dobbs, author of The Unwanted: America Auschwitz, and a Village Caught in Between

From the Publisher

2024-01-17
Romero chronicles the courtship and separation of her parents—a Jewish man and a Lutheran woman—during World War II.

After her father’s sudden death in 1980, the author discovered a box of letters at her parents’ house dating back to 1938. While she’d grown up knowing her parents were refugees from Nazi Germany, they remained tight-lipped about what they had experienced to protect her. Romero’s relationship with her father had been difficult at times, and they frequently disagreed on politics; after his death, she finally came to understand his perspective. Emil Rueb was born in the small village of Guntersblum, Germany, the son of a successful Jewish businessman and vineyard owner. He met Elisabeth Bickel, nicknamed Deta, a Lutheran nurse, while she was working for a family in his village. Though Emil’s parents disapproved of him courting a non-Jew, and Nazi policies increasingly made the relationship untenable, they remained devoted to each other. In 1937, Deta obtained a nursing position in England. A year later, Emil emigrated to New York and then New Hampshire, intending to pursue a career as a photographer and secure passage for Deta, his parents, his sister, and her husband. As Europe headed inexorably toward war and Nazi policies became more restrictive, the possibilities for immigration narrowed. Deta and Emil spent over seven years apart, waiting to be reunited while World War II tore their homeland apart. Using her parents’ letters as a starting point, Romero retraced her parents’ steps in Europe, interviewed surviving acquaintances and relatives, and conducted extensive research to piece together Deta and Emil’s journey. The memoir includes photos and copies of important documents such as tickets, IDs, and postcards, which add a personalized feel to the narrative. Romero often intersperses her own reflections throughout the story. Though unable to reproduce exactly what her parents were thinking and feeling on some occasions, the author’s perspective as their daughter and her viewpoint of their history make this account uniquely poignant; as she writes, “May their story augment our understanding of the past.”

An affecting story of ordinary perseverance during terrible times.

Kirkus Reviews